If you haven’t seen Hidden Figures yet, then you are making a huge mistake. I saw Hidden Figures recently, and it was an inspiring, and uplifting story! Now, if you haven’t seen it, that also means you may want to stop reading, because this review will have spoilers.
The movie tells the story of three black women who worked their way up in NASA; it is based on the lives of Katherine G. Johnson, Mary Jackson, and Dorothy Vaughan. Janelle Monae (who in this film proves she is more than a phenomenal singer), plays Mary Jackson, who worked in the wind tunnel to test the various parts of the rocket. My girl Taraji P. Henson plays Katherine G. Johnson, who throughout the film was referred to as “the computer.” She was able to do math and calculations by hand that other men and women could not do. She handled the calculations of the flight trajectories of the rockets which became vital when it was time for the American astronauts to have their spin in space. Finally the lovely Octavia Spencer plays Dorothy Vaughan who worked her way up to the supervisor position in IBM at NASA. These women faced both racism and sexism working in the various departments at NASA in the 1950’s, but managed to earn a major part in history. This review will talk about some of those racist and sexist highlights that may have been overlooked because of the general inspiring feeling of the story.
What Was Meant For Evil
In the film, there were moments when something that could have been good, was twisted and used in a negative way. One example of this is when the Katherine G. Johnson, who wanted credit for the long hours and hard work she had put in, attempted to authorize the report she wrote on the flight trajectories alongside her white, male, group leader Paul Stafford, the head engineer. Katherine hands him the report but when he sees she put her name on it next to his, he hands it back to her and says “computers don’t authorize reports.” I can understand why they called her the computer, but at this point they had dehumanized her to simply a piece of plastic. In fact, because she was so smart, they couldn’t even think of her as being human; she has to be a computer in order to be that intelligent.
A similar situation happened with Mary Jackson who only wanted to take classes at an all-white high school in order to get credits towards another degree and eventually apply to become an engineer. At the time, the nation was legally desegregated, but in the state of Virginia, bathrooms, stores, water fountains, and apparently schools were still segregated. In order for Mary to make her case to a very racist judge, she had to come up with an elaborate and moving explanation. She talked to the judge about being “the first”. She did extensive research on the judge and reminded him how he was the first to get a degree in his family and the first to join the military among many other things. She compared this to her dream being the first African American engineer at NASA, and in order for her dream to be a reality, the judge needed to be the first in the state to allow her to take classes at an all-white high school. Of course this moved him to allow her only in the night classes which was good enough for her. This is another example of something that could have been good, turned into something I see as negative; she had to puff him up and explain how he would get another ‘win’ if he were to allow her to become the first African American engineer at NASA, which would be the ultimate win!
The final example of this is when Katherine is called into the office for having done something well; she figured out an important equation even though the report she was given was blacked out so she wouldn’t see the confidential parts. She needed those parts to figure out her equation and held it up to the light. They were almost disgusted that she was able to do the equation and instead of congratulating her on her brilliance, they asked her if she was a Russian spy. She wittingly replied “no sir, I’m not Russian.” Just like the computer example, they needed to see her as something other than a black woman to believe she was that intelligent.
Risk Takers
The women in this film took a lot of risks, which says two things: one, their character was strong, but, two, the environment they were in was very weak. In one scene Katherine literally ‘goes off’ on the room full of white men and the Space Task Group director, Al Harrison. Harrison was frustrated with Katherine that she was constantly leaving her desk. He decided to confront her about in front of the room asking her where she goes every day when she leaves her desk. She tells the room that she goes to the bathroom, and what takes so long is there is no bathroom in the building she works in, for black people. She runs every single day out of the building, a mile away, to another building where she can use the “colored restroom.” She also takes the minute to yell at them about not being able to drink out of the same pitcher of coffee, and being given a “colored” coffee maker which she has to fill up every day because no one wants to touch it. The risk of course was her yelling at the director and the room full of white men. This may not have been historically accurate because she actually gained respect for doing this, first with the director pulling off the “colored” label on the coffee maker. Then she walks to the west wing (the colored area) to find her director knocking down the “colored restroom” sign with a metal crowbar. This was the scene that was historically inaccurate; it also did not make since for him to knock out the “colored restroom” sign because white people still would not go there. A bigger statement would be knocking down the “white restroom” sign which would allow the black people in the majority white building to use it. The director says that at their facility there will be no colored or white only bathrooms. This is proven during a scene when Dorothy Vaughan and Vivian Mitchell, her white supervisor, end up using the same bathroom.
Another risk was when Dorothy Vaughan decided to go into a room with a large machine that the white men on that team had not been able to figure out. Dorothy gets it right away and begins running the machine. She does this on a couple of different occasions before she is caught. Because she was able to figure it out, she is asked to work on the team, but her reply is what brings us the scene that I like to call “The Great Exodus.” She tells her supervisor that she won’t take the new position working in IBM without the other black ladies who work with her every day. Her supervisor allows it and the next scene is Dorothy leading a group of 26 young, black women down the hall, out of the building and into another building for the IBM department.
I Was Troubled
What was more apparent to me in the film, was not the overwhelming success of the brilliant women, but rather the blatant hatred and racism the women faced. The amount of times they reminded themselves to keep their composure and keep their heads down and stay humble was troubling. Unfortunately, it’s what got them the jobs they wanted. They had to be brave in the nicest and calmest way possible. The amount of times they were told they couldn’t do something because they were women, (not just by white people, by black men too), was troubling. The fact that they had to be the smartest and most cunning in the room just to be seen as an equal was disappointing. I also couldn’t help but see the lack of black men in those positions. Thankfully, Katherine and Mary both had husbands who came around to their genius and encouraged them to keep going, but it made me wonder why the black men were not taking the same risks. I can’t help but feel it has everything to do with the perception of black men (at that time, and still today) being more harsh than the average black woman. Black men were seen more as a physical threat more than anything, so imagine an intelligent, black man (which there were many). In that time, an intelligent black man was threatening in a physical and mental way, a black, docile woman is not as threatening. This realization, again, troubled me.
Feel Good Ending
The ending is wonderful, of course, with the women having been successful; Katherine is added as a member working in her department calculating flight trajectories, Mary gets her degree and becomes an engineer, and Dorothy becomes the supervisor of her team of ladies at IBM. My favorite scene though, is seeing Katherine working late and her white supervisor (not to be confused with her director) who has given her trouble the entire movie, clumsily brings her, her coffee to which in exchange she hands him the reports she has finished to give to the director. My mouth agape, and legs crossed, I actually clutched my missing pearls. I definitely encourage everyone to see this movie. It was inspiring and beautiful.
