Is there a way to see which contacts are "VIPs" outside of Mail.app?
Seems to be listed here.

~/Library/Mail/V2/MailData/VIPSenders.plist

defaults read ~/Library/Mail/V2/MailData/VIPSenders.plist Senders


I only know how to narrow it down to the nested names in applescript. But you can use the applescript from terminal.

/usr/bin/osascript -e "tell app \"System Events\" to (get value of property list item \"Name\" of property list items of property list item \"Senders\" of property list file  \"~/Library/Mail/V2/MailData/VIPSenders.plist\") "