Hidden Figures Film Analysis

Katherine, in spite of her academic depth and brilliance, was deliberately marginalized by her peers. As she was the only black person in the office, her peers made sure to provide her with a “colored” coffee pot which they did not fill with coffee. However, the most blatant injustice was the fact that she lost hours of work because she was forced to run back and forth to the only “colored” bathroom on the entire NASA complex. Nevertheless, her struggles remained an unseen issue to her colleagues because it was not their reality, and the lack of having a bathroom near their desk did not negatively impact them. It was not until she was questioned about her daily absence that she was able to raise the problem with her supervisors and confront her peers. It took her raising the issue, making this “hidden” issue visible, for quantifiable change to take place. Sometimes in order for change to take place, a marginalized group must be willing to make visible injustices they face and someone in a position of authority be prepared to articulate how that injustice is negatively impacting everybody.

The 2016 historical / drama film, Hidden Figures directed by Theodore Melfi explores the themes of racism and sexism in America during the 1960’s. These themes expresses Theodore Melfi’s intention of this film is displaying that sexism and racism is hard to abolish. Melfi uses visual and verbal features of dialogue, costume and symbolism to contribute to the director’s intention.

Due to the fact that the space race took place between the years of 1957-1975, the height of the civil rights movement was in effect. Considering the fact that much more was happening in the 1950s-60s, the year that this movie is taking place, these people are not incorrect when they say that there was more racial conflict present than just the segregation of colored and white bathrooms. Nevertheless, the purpose of Melfi’s film was not to depict all of the racial injustices towards African-Americans in the 1950s and 1960s, but an emphasis on how inequality directly affected the work that they did inside NASA. As seen in the film, the primary focus is on the work they do that is imperative to their work at NASA. For example, Melfi shows Vaughan being questioned in the library for looking at a book in the white section of the library. Although she is outside of NASA, Melfi portrays that Vaughan needs the book to learn about how to program the IBM machine at NASA. Melfi’s exclusion of other prevalent racial injustices was for the purpose of focusing all of the attention on what they faced as African-American mathematicians at NASA. John A. Murray writes in agreement, as he writes about the purpose of Hidden Figures, states that “African-American women working for the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (later known

Hidden Figures is a 2016 film that recounts the story of three incredible black women in NASA history: Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan and Mary Jackson. The film largely sheds light on the experiences of these three women working as computers for NASA during 1960s segregated America. Public restrooms are separated between the whites and coloreds, the white male patriarchy dominates the field, and as always, racism is alive and well. During the film, the political unrest of the country is present and very much of conversation, and as these three women navigate their way throughout society with positions no one expects them to hold, they quite literally make history through their groundbreaking work, history

Even though she was constantly given looks and treated differently from all the white men she continued to do her work despite what was happening.

Growing up I always loved watching television, as many kids do. Growing up I had favorite actors and characters. But, growing up, I didn't see many that looked like me.; A young black girl. However, recently I’ve noticed that movies and television shows have worked to become more diverse, and even though I have no plans to act, seeing other African-Americans excel in areas that were once white only, inspires me to never give up on my dreams and to never settle. This is why the African-American person that I chose is Viola Davis. Not only has she won over a dozen awards because of her stellar performances on-screen, but she also uses her status and platform to constantly speak on the racial issues in Hollywood.

MOVIE REVIEW Introduction Hidden Figure(2016) based on the untold true story directed by Theodore Melfi a movie that is pack with historical drama that succeeds at being as inspirational and adrenaline-filled where each character, scene and jokes firing on all cylinders to make a film worth repeated viewings. Summary It is in the early 1960's when United State was competing with Russia to become the first country to send man to circle the earth orbit for the first time in history. The story begin with Katherine Johnson (Taraji P. Henson), Dorothy Vaughn(Octavia Spencer) and Mary Jackson(Janelle Monàe) are three African American mathematicians that work at the West Area Computers division at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Black people were portrayed as highly intelligent beings that are strong, independent, and part of a nation who cares and wants the best for everyone in the world regardless of race. Finally, expanding audience diversity with black actors and actresses in better acting roles can appeal to different countries, proven by numbers accumulated at the worldwide box office. This involves black actors and actresses playing positive roles. The movie “Hidden Figures”, a three time Oscar nominee made $66,349,611 to date internationally, and the most recent film, “Black Panther” made $634,558,986 to date and leaped to the top on its first day released in China (Box Office

After watching the movie Hidden Figures from Humanities class. The way how three African American women, who were Katherine Johnson, Mary Jackson, and Dorothy Vaughan gain the respect of the white men in NASA was admirable. They did excellent jobs to make white people changed their mind about giving respect to African American people. They dared to think and dare to do what they have thoughts. They used their gray matter to contribute to the space race of the United States vs. Russia at that moment, and also they changed the white men thoughts about colored people.

Katherine Johnson proved to be an intelligent and an intrepid character. She was proud to be negro and was quiet, yet when provoked, she stood up for herself and expressed her thoughts. These attributed were showcased many times throughout the film Hidden Figures. As the main character, she fulfilled that role and had a hard-working mentality. Such as staying behind at work and working overtime. Her extensive knowledge of mathematics proved that dark-skinned women are worthy of going to college and working in a society where all people are treated equally.

Progression in technology comes with progression of education. The movie “Hidden Figures” highlights the opportunities involved when intelligent, courageous women take strides to create the math to send astronauts to the moon. This movie is about three historical African American women who worked as “human computers” at the NASA Research Center in Langley, VA in the early 1960’s. Katherine Johnson (fellow mathematician), Dorothy Vaughn (programmer) and Mary Jackson (engineer), contributed to NASA space program to successfully send John Glenn, the first man to orbit around the earth, Project Mercury and later Apollo II mission. The film is a powerful reminder of the destructive consequences of discrimination. It holds important career lessons about how to manage and excel at work even under challenging circumstances.

However, they cannot gain the respects and positions without their strong character-traits. Katherine Johnson, Mary Jackson, and Dorothy Vaughan are three of the strongest women ever with brave, kind, adroit and so on. They know how to catch their opportunities, in the movie, after receiving the denying from her partner, Paul, she still tries to ask permission from the boss, and gives him the clearest explanation for her troubles with all the respects. Similarly, Mary Jackson does not give up her dream to be an engineer even though she does not have the encouragement from her husband, the one who suppose to believe her in any circumstance. In addition, Dorothy Vaughan shows to her children that everything should be equal that disregard their race or their gender. They always keep the fire inside them to fight for their rights, their family and their future that become the biggest self-motivations. In my opinion, it is so impressive for women who have truly reasons to keep the fire in their mind, they don’t want to see their children live under the inequalities society that the people has more rights because their gender and their race. There is a lesson that you should never give up your works and your dream even it is impossible to

The 2016 historical film, Hidden Figures directed by Theodore Melfi which explores the themes of racism and sexism in America during the 1960’s. Melfi uses visual and verbal features of dialogue, costume and symbolism to display that sexism and racism is hard to abolish. The messages that Melfi conveys to the audience is that unequal pay and expected sexist uniforms are still present, but if we do something about it, it can be removed.

Katherine G. Johnson, the main character in Hidden Figures, looked beyond through working long hard hours and easily tackling problems due to the color of her skin. Despite these obstacles, this woman strikes the viewers by constantly enjoying every second of her journey and remaining respectful to those who don’t return it. Johnson’s powerful dialogue discloses the confidence within herself and how content she is with her actions. Katherine Johnson knew who she was clearly stated in her line,” I don’t have a feeling of inferiority. Never had.

Much like Hypatia, it is common to see women’s accomplishments downplayed and criticized across all of history. With another wave of the feminist movement we have seen in the last few years, Hollywood has decided to do a bit of retelling to set the story straight of a few major events, these specifically focus on The United States. For example, the movie Hidden Figures (2016), directed by Theodore Melfi, speaks about black women working in NASA in the 1960s and how their contributions did much for the success of the program. Another is the documentary Dolores (2017), directed by Peter Bratt, that was based on the life of Dolores Huerta, a civil rights activist that fought alongside Caesar Chaves, yet received none of the credit for all her accomplishments in American History textbooks. Both these films shed light on women that were overlooked in history due to them not conforming to what society thought a woman should be. For Hypatia, this