Radar's "New Radicals" include the queer and queer-friendly

Provocative pop culture magazine Radar has assembled a list of "The New Radicals" naming "the year's most notable rogues, renegades, and rule-breakers" who've challenged the status quo and worked to keep the pop culture landscape from becoming a bland wasteland.

Gay fave Kathy Griffin starts their list for her now-legendary Emmy acceptance speech, a controversy Griffin attributes to "the dumbing down of America." (Eh, I attribute it to the dumbing down of the media.) In the brief profile, Griffin notes that her "D-List" status allows her to get enough of the a peek into the world of celebrity to give it the thorough mocking that her fans love.

Transgender actress Candis Cayne wraps up the list. Radar notes that Cayne almost gave up on acting after undergoing gender reassignment surgery. Thankfully that didn't happen, as Cayne's role as Carmelita on Dirty Sexy Money is groundbreaking: it's the first time a major-network show has given a regular transgender role to a transgender performer.

Cayne's pitching a comedy project that would follow a fictionalized version of her real life (think So NoTorious or Curb Your Enthusiasm) with husband Marco McDermott and his six-year-old daughter. I'd love to see that.

As part of a quartet of black bloggers who are challenging how the media covers African-American issues, Rod McCullom gets honors by Radar. If you haven't checked out McCullom's blog, Rod 2.0, from out blogroll, be sure to check his great coverage of gay issues.

Radar also praises World of Wonder, the "camp provocateurs" who've given us some great entertainment in film and television. You might know World of Wonder from their documentaries about Tammy Faye Messner, The Eyes of Tammy Faye and Tammy Faye: Death Defying or their follow-up reality series, One Punk Under God, which followed Jay Bakker's gay-friendly ministry. Gay audiences might also know WoW from the Oxygen series, Tori and Dean: Inn Love, as well as the documentary and film Party Monster.

Congratulations to all the honorees for some well-deserved kudos! They're all pretty deserving to be better known by audiences.