Review Of The Film 'Hidden Figures'

The film Hidden Figures is based on a true story and adapted from the book ‘Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race’ by Margot Lee Shetterly. The movie is centered around a trio of African-American women who worked for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and played an essential role in sending John Glenn to space amidst a burgeoning Space Race between the United States of America and Russia. Based in Hampton, Virginia in the 1960’s, film depicts the deep racism and sexism prevalent in the United States at that time. The film provides a glimpse of the stark realities that black women faced at the time. From the segregated bathrooms and

A verbal feature Melfi uses to show the themes of sexism and racism is dialogue. This use of this verbal feature helps establish Theodore Melfi’s true intention for this film that sexism and racism is hard to abolish. For example, when Katherine Johnson expresses her frustrations to her boss Mr. Harrison by saying; “Lord knows you don’t pay the coloured enough to

What I also found to be quite interesting and perhaps a weakness of the film, was the sense of performative racism that four of the main white characters utilize and how the makers of the film appeal to such a phenomenon through symbolisms as well. In the movie, there seems to be two main kinds of racism the characters exhibit, one of them being blatant racism and another being subtle racism through microaggressions. For example, Katherine experiences blatantly racist and misogynistic behavior from her coworkers, especially from Paul Stafford, the lead engineer (making groupthink much easier) and Ruth, the only other woman working in the office. On the other hand, Al Harrison and John Glenn appeal to the subtler sides of racism and performative white pity, Glenn going out of his way to shake the hands of the computers as the film attempted to paint a positive, “not-all-whites” picture of inclusion, acceptance and tolerance, a kind of racism that almost all of the white people in the film come to, by its end. Examples of this can be seen in scenes like the one in which Al Harrison smashes down the “coloreds” and “whites” restroom signs as if implying that doing so will abolish all racial inequalities with a couple of blows of blunt force. One could infer it seems, that paired with the groundbreaking stories of these three women, white people being decent human

The emotional reaction that the filmmakers intended for anyone who watch this film is that no matter what skin, hair and eye color is no one deserves to be labeled. No race should be discriminated and criticize. We should all get along and just be proud of where our roots come from. This film also intended for everyone who watch this film, is that there should not have to be obstacles to be proud of your own race.

Throughout Margot Lee Shetterly’s “Hidden Figures” she portrays exactly how African American women in the 1950’s overcame social obstacles to become successful in their fields. She exposes the careers of 3 women who have overcome these hurdles to not only succeed, but excel in their fields! Shetterly believes the trio has blazed trails that has allowed others to follow in their footsteps. In fact, the three women have become role models for the younger generations. As a young adult, I believe a role model is someone who displays not only good character, but is also admired for their accomplishments in life. One such person who has become a role model to me is Benjamin Carson, M.D. His success, much like the three characters in this book

The central theme of the film is simple: Everyone is prejudiced -- black, white, Asian, Iranian and, we are responsible, anyone from any other racial or ethnic group. We all carry around racial/ethnic baggage that’s filled with unfair stereotypes, long-stewing grievances, raw anger, and crazy fears. Even when we think we have made progress, we find ourselves caught in frustratingly complex racial webs

Hidden Figures is a movie that focused on three women and the space race. Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan, and Mary Jackson played a main role in helping NASA with the space race. All three of them worked to help for John Glenn’s flight to orbit the earth. The behind the scenes that lead up to Mercury-Atlas 6’s blast off was acknowledged in the movie Hidden Figures. 1961 is when all of the major change that lead to today’s history started to happen inside of NASA.

But in reality racism exists in a structural sense, i.e., in schools, employment, justice, etc. As rational beings we mustn’t let Hollywood trick us into believing that racism was something that existed in 1800’s and looks like chains and shackles on Black people. Rather we must try to look at the movie from a historical point of view and gleam the meaning it tries to portray rather than looking at what is shown without making inferences. The racism that existed in the 1800’s has now camouflaged itself; it is a growing challenge that must be overridden. Hollywood simple produces these ‘message’ movies, nominates it to the Oscars and moves on with the issue

This movie is about Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan, and Mary Jackson who are three African American women who work for NASA. These three women broke racial and gender barriers in this movies with their accomplishments. They helped build the spaceship that sent the first man to orbit the Earth. This movie took place during the time that the Soviet Union and the United States were in a space race. This movie shows the struggles that the three women and also other women had to face while working at NASA and in the community. Hidden Figures shows specific roles that women and women of color play in movies and

In the movie, Katherine Johnson was a mathematician at NASA. For one of the space flights, they had to try and get John Glenn to orbit the Earth. Katherine’s two head coworkers would always go into important meetings that they kept telling her she couldn’t attend. Her boss told her that it was because no blacks or women go into these meetings. After constant asking, Katherine’s boss finally gives in. During one of the meetings, they are trying to find the perfect landing spot for the rocket. No one in the room knows what to do and how to solve the problem so Katherine steps in and shows everyone that she can solve their problems. (Melfi). Katherine was very intelligent and everyone took her for granted. After that meeting, her boss wanted her to do more and more things. Before the rocket took off, everyone thought there was an error in the landing coordinates. Katherine had just been fired so her boss called her in immediately because they couldn’t mess this up (Melfi). That just proves that blacks and women can do anything that whites and men can do. No one should be told that they can’t do something because of their skin color or their gender. During this period of time, racism began to be more directed to more people than just blacks. Gender has always been a big role but now mixed with race, it became an even bigger problem. Men felt that women, especially black women weren’t meant to be in the spotlight, doing big things with their lives. This movie just goes to show that blacks and women can do anything a man can do. We all have the same brain, and we can all get the same knowledge if all people were given the same

Yet, despite this struggle for ownership, the fit between Science Fiction and people-of-color appears to be an intuitive one. Mark Dery (“Black to the Future”) poignantly points out, effectively noting that African Americans are always already seen and constructed as Other/Alien (8) . Is that all that surprising? Not

Cultural Issue: This movie was full of cultural issues but the one that stood out the most had to do with race. Racism is “the subordination of any person or group because of some physically distinctive characteristic” (Marsiglia & Kulis,

The film presented a white woman who clutched her purse and held her husband’s arm as she saw a black, African American man walk towards her. Similar situations, such as a white woman feeling threatened when she sees a person of color close to her, happens in our community frequently.

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.

Freedom and equalities are the undeniable rights of a person that were confirmed by God and the humanities. However, there is no easy way to have those rights , they are only deserved for the people who fight for it. Let’s take the film Hidden Figures as a good illustration for this point. The movie describes the three brilliant black women--Katherine Johnson, Mary Jackson, and Dorothy Vaughan-- who worked in NASA and their fights to gain the respects from the white men with two factors: their talents and their character-traits.