On Wednesday, Time revealed its most influential people in the world list, and, as is the case every year, I have many, many questions. For instance, I know Adam Brody gave Fleabag‘s Hot Priest reason to sweat under his collar thanks to his turn as Hot Rabbi in Nobody Wants This, but is that really worth a spot on this particular list? And no one would argue against Kristen Wiig being one of the best things to happen to Saturday Night Live, but…she left in 2012. Also, we all know the president has pull—like it or not—as does Elon Musk, but seeing their names next to Gisèle Pelicot‘s? Yuck.
If, like me, you’ve long wondered the criteria for how the magazine chooses its purposefully controversial list (see this year’s here), you’ll likely stay wondering. Frankly, the magazine is almost comically vague about it this year. Don’t believe me? Visit the landing page and you’ll find a lot of words without much meaning.
The process of choosing individuals is overseen by Chief Strategy Officer, Dan Macsai, and Executive Editorial Director, Cate Matthews, who lead “TIME’s journalists through a year of debate and discovery” and speak “with sources and partners around the globe to whittle down a list of 100 individuals.” Huh. I, for one, would love to know what sources and partners these two are in consort with. I’ll go out on a limb and say publicists and the deep-pocketed comprise a great deal of them.
As confident as I am about the latter, I will always find it impossible to stomach that a woman like Pelicot, who bravely faced her rapists (including her ex-husband, Dominique) for the better part of last year, is lumped in with half of the Trump cabinet (and at least one accused rapist). From the start of the landmark trial against her ex-husband and his cohorts in September 2024, Pelicot’s case horrified France and sent shockwaves across the world due in large part to the abhorrent abuse inflicted upon her. By December, Dominique was sentenced to 20 years in prison for repeatedly raping his ex-wife while she was unconscious and inviting over a reported 80 men to take part between 2011 and 2020. The rapes were recorded by her then-husband and kept on his hard drive until they were discovered by authorities when he was arrested for taking photos up women’s skirts at a supermarket in southeastern France in 2020.
Pelicot’s courage in insisting that the proceedings be made public in order to shift the shame onto her perpetrators inspired a number of marches and rallies in France and made her a hero. Frankly, it begs the question that if Time can include someone as banal as Brody, why not leave out someone as destructive (and utterly at odds with half of the list) as Trump? Unless, of course, that’s the point, which is just plain bleak.
“The stories this project tells change with the headlines, so every May, our research starts anew,” Matthews said of the outlet’s selection process. “The one constant we see each year is that a single person’s hard work, idea, or decision can change the world.”
Now, I get how Trump, JD Vance, Robert F. Kennedy, Mark Zuckerberg, and BlackRock CEO Larry Fink could change the world (read: by actively making it uninhabitable). But, at the same time, I’m having a bit of trouble with the notion that both Nicole Scherzinger and Ismahane Elouafi, the Executive Managing Director of CGIAR (a leading agricultural research organization), have similarly profound impacts. Further, who but people he pays thought Ed Sheeran should make the cut??? Or Snoop Dogg, for that matter.
In fairness, it’s not all bad. In addition to Pelicot, I agree with a few inclusions. Hozier? That’s an LGBTQ+ icon. Simone Biles, Serena Williams, Breanna Stewart? Those are decorated Olympians and, when they need to be, petty queens. Jalen Hurts? I mean, the face card alone…
All in all, it’s pretty much business as usual for Time. Remember when Hitler made the cut?
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Still here. Still without airbrushing. Still with teeth.
