Dan Karlan and Jeremy Salter - The 101 Most Influential People Who Never Lived: How Characters of Fiction, Myth, Legends, Television, and Movies Have Shaped Our Society, Changed Our Behavior, and Set the Course of History

I first heard about this book from my friend Ryan, who was reading it a few months ago. "The 101 Most Influential People Who Never Lived" is a book about how fictional characters have "shaped our society, changed our behavior, and set the course of history." It's an intriguing look that treats fictional characters (including those from books, myths, legends, television and movies) have changed the world around us, for the better or the worse.

Each of the 101 characters profiled (I first typed "people," but they're not all people) gets a one-to-four page essay on why they're so significant, and in some cases, why they were chosen over other, very similar characters.

The essays are introduced by a short description of how the book about (basically philosophical ramblings in a bookstore/coffee shop), and then a list of the 101 in rank order from first to 101st. That's the part of the book people find most interesting, but I won't reproduce that list here. Some of the ones that stuck out most to me in that list:

4. Santa Claus
7. Siegfried
14. Oedipus
26. Cinderella
32. Archie Bunker
44. Buffy the Vampire Slayer
60. Batman
67. Kermit the Frog
85. Luke Skywalker
91. Dorothy Gale

...it's an eclectic list, to be sure. So much of the list seems like comparing apples and oranges, that it would have been difficult for anyone to come up with a "fair ranking" of the characters involved. How do you compare something that's had centuries (or millenia) of influence to something that's only been around since the 1990s? How does a legend fare when compared to a television program? These questions came to mind over and over again while reading this book.

Some of the essays are so biased that they make the entire book difficult to swallow. For example, a few of them, Cinderella and Hansel & Gretel devolve into a defense of stepmotherdom, and how unfairly stepmothers have been labeled because of these fairy tales. Sindbad ("Sinbad") is derided for his violence, but other, equally violent heroes are not. Siegfried is blamed for both World Wars, and The Ugly Duckling is blamed for a cultural obsession with beauty. Authors Allan Lazar, Dan Karlan, and Jeremy Salter are entertaining, but I disagree with them as often as I agree with them.

Between the chapters, which are arranged into seventeen not-so-neat categories (Luke Skywalker is in "adventure," but not "movies"?) are interludes. Some of these are informative, like "how we ranked them," and some entertaining, "who met whom?" on the fictional list.

The characters are ranked by their influence, not necessarily by how much we love them, and so it may be fitting that the Marlboro Man made it to #1. I was put off by the choice at first, because surely someone else deserved top billing. Their rationale is tied to Marlboro's sales before and after that ad campaign started, and their continued domination of the cigarette market (and the subsequent deaths of millions worldwide). At least Santa was a close runner-up.

If you're a pop culture geek like I am, and you're also interested in the big picture, or long-term geekery of pop culture, you'll find a lot to celebrate, and a lot to gripe about, in "The 101 Most Influential People Who Never Lived."

Just don't try to tell me that Kermit's not real.