And good point about the proliferation of pop culture forensic anthropologists. There’s good evidence from my everyday life that forensic anthropologists are now the popular face of anthropology, because I meet someone new and they ask me what I do and I say that I’m an anthropologist, about half the time they say, “What’s that?” and the other half of the time they say, “You mean bones and stuff?”

Funny that you mention Indiana Jones because much of my fieldwork in Egypt took place on the Giza Plateau in the offices of Dr. Zahi Hawass, who at that time was the head of all Giza Egyptology (now head of the Supreme Council of Antiquities). Dr. Hawass is famous amongst his friends for wearing what his friends jokingly call his “Indiana Jones hat.” He has achieved fame as an archaeologist because he’s done such a good job of popularizing his research with appearances on Fox Television and National Geographic, where he is always opening a new tomb live or unwrapping some mummy. Even if what they find in the new tomb is some really mundane find, i.e. the remains of some Old Kingdom priest or scribe, at the end of each show, he speculates that maybe the *next* tomb they open will hold the secrets of lost civilizations.

In effect, Hawass appeals to the Indiana Jones imagination of archaeology as a colonial treasure hunt, even while doing very normal and relatively unspectacular archaeological research.

So I wonder what sort of character the aspiring popular anthropologist might model herself after? I think you’re right that Margaret Mead is little known in this generation. So… Lindsay Lohan?

But the other obvious one is the proliferation of forensic anthropolgists, such as the star of the TV series Bones, which I know I’ve seen at least once. It may be a rip off of CSI, but at least we get some sort of name recognition boost.

I think our generation’s impression of what an anthropologist is actually doesn’t include Margaret Mead very prominently. I think it’s more likely that Indiana Jones is the major point of reference (even if it’s inaccurate for the non-archaeological among us). But I do like your suggestion about the reason that anthropologist figures might be used in relation to class differences in US media. Ironically, at the same time that ‘reality TV’ has made celebrity life all the more well known, the sense of distance and alien-ness grows so the anthropologist as mediator to know the alien within our own society makes a lot of sense. But it’s late, and I’m still working on a lecture…