This documentary is a fascinating portrait of one of the most influential women of our time. Using never-before-seen archival footage, stills, interviews, and dramatic re-creations, it weaves together a story of a scientist, adventurer, and international celebrity whose ideas shaped how we think about ourselves.

Margaret Mead first gained attention in the 1920s and ‘30s with her pioneering studies of youth and gender in Samoa and New Guinea. By age thirty-three, the five-foot, one-hundred-pound Mead had traveled three times around the globe and explored uncharted lands where few men and no women dared to go. By age thirty-four she had published three bestsellers, taken the second of three husbands, and revolutionized our understanding of what gender means. When she was not conducting fieldwork, most of her professional years were spent at the American Museum of Natural History. Later in life, she was often seen on television as a bespectacled, sometimes outrageous advice-giver to the Vietnam War generation. This film chronicles the controversies and the accomplishments that punctuated Mead’s life.

Margaret Mead: An Observer Observed is a valuable film for Women's Studies, Anthropology and History, as well as public library audiences.

This film was partially funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Science Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation.

"A thorough portrait of one of this century's most influential people, this is suitable for class room and general audiences."
‒Booklist

Hot Springs, Documentary Film Festival, 1997
Silver Apple, National Educational Film & Video Festival, 1997
American Historical Association, 1997
Hon. Men., Society for Visual Anthropology, 1996
Margaret Mead Film Festival, 1996