Review of Hidden Figures (2016) by Lilyana E — 11 Dec 2018

The sixties were an intense decade, because of the famous "Space Race". The Space Race was a competition between between the Soviet Union and The United States, during the cold war, to see who could reach space first. The United States "won" the race, but not everyone who helped is recognized. Hidden Figures is a film directed by Theodore Melfi, about three black women who worked behind the scenes to make sure John Glenn (Glen Powell) would get safely launched into space. These women were Katherine Johnson (Taraji Henson), Dorothy Vaughan (Octavia Spencer), and Mary Jackson (Janelle Monáe). Hidden Figures shows the true story of these three women and their battle against racism and sexism to be in the STEM field. Although it is an inspiring story, it doesn't tell the full truth.

The movie did tell the true stories of the three women and the NASA space launch. The three women all persevered to achieve their dreams. They worked as computers at the beginning of the movie, but all slowly worked their way to their dream jobs. Katherine Johnson was an extremely talented mathematician who ended up working with white men to calculate the correct landing spot for the Freedom 7. Mary Jackson is an aspiring engineer that struggles to work in her own field. Dorothy Vaughan runs the black computers and learns the code for the new IBM computer (IMDb). It shows the classic "anything is possible" kind of moral.

The movie in of itself wasn't terrible, but it was not fully historically correct. Many things happened in the movie that did not happen in real life. The film exaggerated the racism, by adding scenes that were not true, but made the plot and or movie more interesting. For example, many times we see that Johnson has to go across campus to use the colored restrooms, but this is untrue and did not really happen. So by Hollywood making the movie more dramatic, it made the movie less historically accurate. The characters also lacked depth and complexity. Most had one defining characteristic. For example, we notice that Jackson is sassy, and that is her defining characteristic (Oclese). It also is mainly focused on Johnson's story, even though ll of their stories are interesting, and all had the same determination to achieve their dreams.

Even with all of the things that were inaccurate, it doesn't mean that the movie was necessarily bad. It was still a great, inspiring film. This film is great for most age groups, the youngest probably around twelve. It is great for anyone to see this and be inspired, especially young women children. It is important for people to see that being prejudice, rasict or sexixst will not and can not stop anyone.