Time 100: The Most Important People of The Century - Criticisms

Criticisms

The list of the top 20 Artists and Entertainers, in particular, was criticized for not including Elvis Presley, a decision Handy initially defended in the following way:

One of the most important, innovative things about rock is the whole notion of songwriters singing their own works, of the immediacy of expression. Since Elvis didn't write his own material, unlike The Beatles or Bob Dylan or Robert Johnson, who's also someone who could have been included, maybe that cut against him… I think the Beatles pushed the envelope a lot further. Elvis' most original recordings were his first. The Beatles started out as imitators, then continued to grow throughout their years together.

Handy was also asked to defend Time’s decision to include the fictional character Bart Simpson from The Simpsons television series among the 100 most influential people of the 20th century, and he did so as follows:

I don't see how you can look at this century and not include cartoons. They're one of our great contributions, along with jazz and film. (I know, I know. The movies were a 19th-century invention. But we 20th century folks really put them to good use.)… To some extent, too, we wanted people who also represented important 20th century trends or developments. That would help account for the Barts and Oprahs... What Bart, or really the Simpsons, have done is merge social satire with popular animation in a way that hasn't really been done before.

The list also received criticism for its inclusion of Lucky Luciano who was chosen in part because “he modernized the Mafia, shaping it into a smoothly run national crime syndicate focused on the bottom line”. New York mayor Rudy Giuliani accused Time of "romanticizing" gangsters and stated, "The idea that he civilized the Mafia is absurd. He murdered in order to get the position that he had, and then he authorized hundreds and hundreds of murders." The selection was called an “outrage” by Philip Cannistraro, a Queens College professor of Italian-American studies, and Thomas Vitale, the New York State vice president of Fieri, an Italian-American charitable organization, criticized Time for "perpetuating myths" about Italian-Americans. However Time business editor Bill Saporito defended the selection by calling Luciano as "kind of an evil genius" who had a deep impact on the underground economy. "We're not out there to heap glory on these people," he explained. "We're out to say these are people who influenced our lives." Saporito further noted that "every piece of merchandise that came out of the Garment District had a little extra cost in it because of organized crime."