This essay includes film clips that will be available for viewing soon.
I want to depart from what Faye has talked about in terms of Margaret Mead as the producer of visual anthropology and media and shift to look at one of the major legacies of Mead’s work in this area: the Margaret Mead Film & Video Festival sponsored by the American Museum of Natural History. I want to look at the creation and evolution of the festival so as to show (along with Marcyliena Morgan’s paper) the varied types of cultural spaces that Mead’s work has opened up. I’m going to first begin by talking a bit about the history of the festival. I’m going to use some clips and then talk about how Mead’s world view has really helped inspire a number of new projects that the Mead Festival has embarked upon in the past several years.
The festival was created in 1977 to celebrate Mead’s 75th birthday and her 50th year working in the Anthropology Department at the American Museum of Natural History. Mead cared deeply about the role of museums in education. In fact, she was pretty unique in trying to move intellectual ideas away from the academy, and, really, more into mainstream venues like museums and informal centers. This concern is also reflected in the kind of writing she did. It was not only for the academy, but she wrote ethnographies that were intended for popular consumption that came out as paperbacks and were available in grocery stores, for example. She was a columnist from 1961 until her death. She had a monthly column in Redbook magazine. Really, in all aspects of her life she was trying to weave ideas that were of concern to the American public (or maybe not even of concern, but of which she wanted people to be aware) into all these venues.
The festival was created as a way to honor this legacy. The Education Department of the Museum wanted to think about an appropriate way to celebrate her life and her contributions, and they came up with the concept of a film festival. The festival honors Mead’s pioneering in the application of photography and film-making in fieldwork, and in the development of visual anthropology as a subdiscipline of the field of anthropology. But, the Museum also chose to produce a film festival because film was a popular form of media. It was a way of attracting general audiences to come and think, debate and discuss a wide range of issues. So, in September of 1977 the first festival – what was to be a one-time festival – was held throughout the American Museum of Natural History. There were makeshift film screens set up in various culture halls in addition to screenings in the theatres. The themes of each of the film screenings were really designed around some of the issues that had been part of the legacy of American anthropology: looking at the role of individuals, looking at the role of families. The festival also dealt with women’s issues in particular, because that, again, was one of the pioneering elements Mead brought to the field of anthropology. Finally, the festival included a focus on cross-cultural study within film, to make us think about similarities and differences in cultural experience.
Now over the years there have been some threads of continuity in the festival. It has, for example, continued to focus on cross-cultural issues and is still celebrated in autumn. The project receives nearly 1,200 submissions every year, and as we embark on the 25th anniversary, it’s safe to say that the project has received over 15,000 titles during its history.
I want to show two short clips. One is an illustration of Mead’s role as a public intellectual and of her use of media as a great tool to help generate ideas in popular spheres. This is a segment from Virginia Yans’ film called Margaret Mead: An Observer Observed. The next brief segment is a work that was done by noted cinema verité film-maker, Jean “Rouch,” who had a brief encounter with Mead on film after the first festival in 1977. It’s a real pity not to be able to show the whole film because, in contrast to a lot of documentaries, it’s really a journey – a conversation with Mead – during the course of a day. It has a magic you can’t appreciate in a three-minute clip.
Clip 1,
Margaret Mead: An Observer Observed
Clip 2
One of our growing interests at the festival, one that is very much inspired by Margaret Mead’s legacy, has been how to enable the independent film to circulate more broadly. I’ve been doing a lot of teaching at other universities throughout the States and I always ask anthropology students if they read Mead in their undergraduate coursework; it seems like she’s not included in the coursework much anymore. This is a real disappointment in the sense that, while some of her theories may not be relevant by today’s standards, her approach to the field of anthropology and to the field of American thought and intellectualism is still really critical. This continues to be a driving force in the Mead Festival Project.
In the past several years we’ve been inspired to use some of Mead’s ideas regarding education reform and using media in more informal settings, to try to encourage other kinds of communities to celebrate ideas through cinema. In 1992 the Festival founded the National Traveling Film Festival to move this media beyond the more privileged audiences of New York and bring it to universities, libraries, film centers, religious centers. Many of these documentaries are works that you wouldn’t see on mainstream television, and they resonate very differently when they circulate to other parts of the country. For example, one title that was very popular when we presented it in New York was called Dr. Spencer, the Abortion Doctor, which was a biographical tale of one of the abortion providers. The film had actually “disappeared” or was stolen before its screening at the Memorial Museum in Austin, Texas, in 1994. It’s a profound reminder of the way that access to ideas and information is always under threat, even in different regions of our own country.
Here’s a clip:
Clip 3, Dr. Spencer, the Abortion Doctor
We’ve also begun a high school media pilot weaving some of these films and videos into global studies programs. Working with communities throughout the five boroughs, such as the “Point” in the Bronx and the Girls’ Club on the Lower East Side, we work with young people and encourage them not only to create their own stories through photography or video, but to learn how to be critical thinkers, using film and video as a starting point.
This is all to say that Margaret Mead’s influence continues to be very strong, even as we embark on the twenty-first century. It helps to look back in order to continue thinking about the ways we could be conceptualizing the legacies of visual anthropology for the future.
I want to conclude with one, last, brief segment of a film that we showed this past year – an animated film – which shows how we continue to push the boundaries of what has historically been thought of as an anthropological film festival.
Clip 4
Because Mead was interested in such a wide range of subjects, it is possible, under the umbrella of the Mead Film Festival, to include every kind of topic under the sun and beyond. In closing, I would like to provide one anecdote that is symbolic of this expansive worldview. It turns out that in a 1974 article she wrote for Redbook, the subject of that month was, “UFOs: Visitors from Outer Space?” Mead’s opinion was sought on nearly every subject. Many even inquired if she “believes” in UFOs? Here’s her response:
I think this is a silly question, born of confusion. Belief has nothing to do with matters of faith; it has nothing to do with the kind of knowledge that is based on scientific inquiry. We should not bracket UFOs with angels, archangels, devils and demons. But this is just what we’re doing when we ask whether people believe in UFOs; as if their existence were an article of faith. Do people believe in the sun or the moon, or the changing seasons, or the chairs they’re sitting on? When we want to understand something strange, something previously unknown to anyone, we have to begin with an entirely different set of questions. What is it? How does it work? Are their recurrent regularities? Beginning in this way, with an open mind, people can take a hard look at all the evidence.
Beginning with an open mind is what Mead was all about.
