Tempting Top Ten: Non-conformists

I already listed great people I admire for G in the A-Z blogging challenge, but there were so many more I wanted to mention: those who go against the norm, trail-blaze a new way, or just generally make our days a little brighter and hopeful with their antics, jokes, or activism.

It's a stretch to call this a "tempting" top ten (my A-Z theme), but these people  tempt me to try something new, to be myself instead instead of blending in the with the crowd, to dare to be different, or to just applaud them for being visionaries.

10. Gene Roddenberry - for creating Star Trek and envisioning the final frontier

9. Alfred Hitchcock - one of cinema's most significant artists. He did more than any director to shape modern cinema. His flair was for engaging the emotions of the audience like no one else.

8. Monty Python -for pushing the boundaries of what was acceptable in style and content and humor.  "Always look on the bright side of life" "My philosophy, like color television, is all there in black and white" "Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government!"

7. Bob Dylan - included in the Time 100: The Most Important People of the Century where he is called "master poet, caustic social critic and intrepid, guiding spirit of the counterculture generation"  Quotes: "A hero is someone who understands the responsibility that comes with his freedom"

How many years can some people exist,
before they're allowed to be free?
And how many times can a man turn his head,
and pretend that he just doesn't see?
The answer my friend is blowing in the wind,
the answer is blowing in the wind.

6. Elizabeth I Queen of England - "She is only a woman, only mistress of half an island," marveled Pope Sixtus V, "and yet she makes herself feared by Spain, by France, by the Empire, by all." She was a non-conformist in refusing to marry either for political reasons or for love.

5. Johnny Depp - for being himself. "I am doing things that are true to me. The only thing I have a problem with is being labeled." "I don't pretend to be captain weird. I just do what I do."

Almost never photographed smiling - this smirk is as close as you get to a smile.

 
4. Jeff Foxworthy - for making it cool to be a redneck, and being funny and good-hearted at the same time. "Between New York and LA, there's 200 million people that aren't hip, and they don't want to be hip." "You know you are redneck when you need an estimate from your barber before getting a haircut."


3. Melissa McCarthy - for being a brilliant actress (you KNOW she stole the show in Bridesmaids) and showing us there are other ways to be beautiful than the skinny one.

2. Emma Watson - first of all for playing my favorite female hero, Hermione, a girl who made it cool to study hard and learn like crazy. Second of all, for being a non-conformist about her image:

1. So many pioneers that braved places it wasn't "acceptable" for them to go, 0pening doors for countless others:  Marie Curie,  Rosa Parks, Nelson Mandela, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Susan B. Anthony, Dorothea Dix, William Wilberforce... I could name so many more.

Who are your favorite non-conformists?