Jolie wins the world’s admiration
To be a universally admired woman whose popularity transcends cultures and countries is easy. Have a phenomenally successful film career followed by a stint as a UN ambassador, or be a royal.
Angelina Jolie (Tomb Raider, then UN special envoy for refugees) has been named the world’s most admired woman in a survey of 25,000 people from 23 countries, leapfrogging the Queen in the rankings.
One in ten of those polled considered the actress to be more worthy of respect not only than Her Majesty, but also Angela Merkel, Hillary Clinton and Sonia Gandhi, among others.
The YouGov poll, which broke down results by country, is not all bad news for Britain. Emma Watson (Harry Potter, then UN women goodwill ambassador) is a new entrant, coming in at No 11 in Britain. In Germany she beats Aung San Suu Kyi, she is only slightly below Sarah Palin in the US and on a par with Malala Yousafzai in Malaysia.
For men, the formula for success is simpler. Either give away your money like Bill Gates (No 1 globally), Jack Ma (eighth) and Warren Buffett (tenth); be good with your feet like David Beckham (12th) and Jackie Chan (an unexpected fourth); or be married to Jolie — Brad Pitt is No 13.
Britain’s highest-ranking man is less easy to categorise. After the success of the film The Theory of Everything — and, to give him his due, a career in physics that culminated in holding Isaac Newton’s chair in Cambridge while also suffering from motor neurone disease — Stephen Hawking came top in the UK and ninth globally.
Perhaps validating Britain’s decision to allow female succession, male royals generally only ranked in the top 30 in their own realm.
The Queen was admired in every country surveyed — in Nigeria even defeating the formidable Jolie — and the Duchess of Cambridge managed to impress so consistently that she overhauled Beyoncé Knowles in Saudi Arabia.
Prince Harry, whose achievements last year included downing champagne from the prosthetic leg of a wounded veteran, pipped Pope Francis to eighth place among Britons but was not alone in finding he was only appreciated in his home country.
Female politicians suffered similarly and despite strong UK rankings for Caroline Lucas, Nicola Sturgeon and Theresa May, all have yet to make an impact internationally. Unlike Bono, who was ignored everywhere except for Finland.
The poll was conducted by asking almost 30,000 people to name the man or woman they most admired, then compiling a list of the most common answers in each country for a subsequent vote.
People were allowed to choose one favourite and select any others they also respected. The final rankings combined these two factors.
One mystery remains. There is a woman who appears in sixth position globally, is first in Nigeria, fourth in Indonesia and middle-ranking almost everywhere else despite having done little of international note for a decade since she sang the theme song to Titanic. Whoever thought there were so many closet Celine Dion fans?
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/life/cele ... 340421.ece
