Review of Hidden Figures (2016) by Alya W — 05 Dec 2018

Hidden Figures: Discrimination and Determination.

The Realities of NASA.

Hidden Figures is a veritable movie, taking place in the early sixties, where three black women were discriminated against their race, and gender in the NASA computers division. The film is well characterized by the actors, with a powerfully written script by the director, Allison Schroeder. This historical movie is based on the nonfiction book, Hidden Figures, by Margot Lee Shetterly. Although countable events that took place were real, the movie would not have been entertaining without further conflict. The actors portray the hardships of being âcomputersâ? at NASA, and their struggles to fight for civil rights and displayed tough female leads.

This well written, award-winning historical movie is no documentary. For example, the three main actors, Dorothy Vaughan, Mary Jackson, and Katherine Johnson were depicted as being close friends. In the actual story, they were colleagues who supported one's dreams, but they never were close (Schroeder). These untrue events that are claimed to be right continue. For instance, Katherine Johnsonâ(TM)s scene when she ran all the way to the African American womenâ(TM)s lavatory never happened. Katherine Johnson was not the one running across the branch, Mary Jackson was. Jacksonâ(TM)s story of running to a bathroom with a colored sign on it is entirely different from the story. Johnson had explained that she did not feel discriminated against, even using the white washrooms, (Harris). Also, Al Harrison, the head of the space program, melodramatic scene of hammering the sign in front of the ladies restroom was fictional. It seems as though the director added this dramatized scene to raise the conflict of the story. Furthermore, without rising action, the storyline would have been disinteresting, and would not have been an award-winning film.

The three African American women faced many challenges through NASA. The movie depicts how the women were discriminated against in the 1960s. They were discriminated not just by race but by gender. For example, Dorothy Vaughan leads a group of African American women to the mainframe computer room. She saw this as an opportunity for her fellow African American colleagues to advance. This symbolizes the civil rights movement. In this time in history, women mainly worked as receptionists, and their talents for mathematics and science were shut down. Katherine Johnson took her chance and upgraded from being a human computer to working on the mathematics behind the Mercury 7 mission. She was highly discriminated against by her male colleagues. The movie shows a clear image of how Johnson struggled to work in a large room of white men. A clear vision the film tried to explain was the scene where Paul Stafford, a white engineer, forbade Johnson to sit in on a board meeting. Al Harrison, the boss, shut down his sexist and racist comments by allowing her to sit in on the meeting. Johnson even did calculations in front of the representatives and got assigned the Mercury 7 launch. All three of the women have had amazing accomplishments while facing discrimination and the harsh Jim Crow Laws.

This movie attempts to demonstrate the hardships the African American women endured. Hidden Figures does well to characterize the three astonishing women and their marvelous work. Although it is not historical in the least, the plot appeals to younger audiences (adolescent) as well as older adults. This movie will likely not appeal to history buffs who will not agree with the events that took place. This reason is that the film is not historically correct but still gives a vivid image of segregation. The maturity of this movie is not meant for younger viewers because they may not understand the symbols shown. Overall, this movie is a depiction of what African American women had to do to overcome equality issues and misogyny.