HIDDEN FIGURES

The film ‘Hidden Figures’ was adopted from the novel, ‘Hidden Figures: The American

Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the

Space Race’ by Margot Lee Shetterly. It was directed by Theodore Melfi.  The film has gone

on to be nominated for three categories in the Oscar Award 2017: Best Picture, Best

Supporting Actress (Octavia Spencer) and Writing Adapted Screen Play. The story is based

on a true story of the three African American Woman named Katherine Johnson, Dorothy

Vaughan and Mary Jackson, who worked at the National Aeronautics Space Administration

during the space race. The story depicts serious racism, sexism, and different prejudices and

social inequality prevalent in the United States at that time that mostly African American

Women were experiencing.

The story started with the main protagonist Katherine Johnson skipping grade levels

due to her extreme intelligence specially in algebra and geometry. Katherine then works at

NASA with her friends Dorothy Vaughan and Mary Jackson, her friend who wanted to be an

engineer. The two brilliant African-American women also work at NASA, served as the brains

behind one of the greatest operations in history the launch of astronaut John Glenn into

orbit. The gist of the story is all about the racism and discrimination that the three women

were experiencing. Not only with their color but to the fact that they were women also.

Overall, the story suggests various Feminist point-of-views which help us understand

the connection between the social inequalities of each gender. First off, in the story Women
in general doesn’t get that much opportunities to study while Men can. They were also paid

less based on their gender and race, which is also prevalent to today’s situation. They were

continually referred to as “computers” that could be discarded when a newer upgrade came

along, which shows the extent to which women were objectified then just as they are now

In the movie, an engineer is impressed and said that Mary would ought to be an

engineer but Mary said that she is a negro woman and emphasizes that should not entertain

the impossible. The head engineer asked her if she was a white man, she would wish to be

an engineer, Mary said that she can be already an engineer because the school for engineer

is limited for a colored people. Hence, that simple dialogue proves the privileges of being a

man and the inequality that women suffered.

In a racism perspective, they were a lot of discrimination and inequalities the women

have suffered especially in their workplace just because of their skin color. Firstly, just simply

looking at the employees of NASA in their office where all of them are white people and

men, simply indicates the segregation between them. When Katherine was assigned to

calculate the trajectories of launching and landing of a shuttle, she was expected to abide by

a uniform which included pearls to ensure a veneer of class-tinted “respectability”.

She received a sheaf of papers from her coworkers which was blacked out in parts, to irk her

and keep her out of the loop, which she had to decipher in order to proceed with her

calculations. Thus, her capabilities were initially undermined by the men she worked with. 

Katherine was also forced to run across the streets just to access the bathrooms as

they were segregated for white women and women of color. The film also took into account

how white women sometimes took the role of oppressors too, with the privileges that their
class and race accorded them, as they were often seen speaking to the black women

in condescending tones.

Another racist scene was at NASA, when Katherine was going to pour some coffee at

her cup and her co-workers shows loathsome faces since they want to segregate white

people from colored people. At the next day, she noticed that there are two teapots,

separates between white and colored people, which is labeled “Colored.”

Although there was a relatively smaller focus on Dorothy and Mary’s stories, one did

get a glimpse into their struggles. Mary wanted to be an engineer but had to face many

obstacles like her husband’s guilt-tripping for not staying at home with their children, and

fighting for the right to be the first black person and woman to attend her all-white grad

school where she had to face constant belittlement. She had to make a plea in court where

she fought against institutionalized racism by arguing in a very effective way when the judge

told her that it hadn’t been done before – she declaimed the importance of being the first

black woman to attend an all-white grad school by alluding to the judge being the first in his

family to be a part of the armed forces and the first to attend university to iterate her point.

She was victorious and was granted the right to attend the all-white grad school.

Moreover, Dorothy takes her children to the library and finds a book on about

programming, a white woman notices her and complains on why colored people is reading a

book, which that book is for the white people only, since the section for colored people

doesn’t have a book that Dorothy is looking for. Dorothy and her children were kicked out

the library. The three black women were as capable as any of the white women and men,

they even exceed to the potential of white people, but suffered due to the unfavorable
conditions of the time. Imagine all their efforts to just for them to fight their basic human

rights.

Summarizing all the points pointed out, Hidden Figures is a good read and a good

watch with various implications of Feminism and Racism. The way how the author formed

the characters of Katherine Johnson, Mary Jackson and Dorothy Voughan were key

takeaways of how Feminism and Racism was perceived in the story. Also, the conflict

between the backstory of each character, where each of them suffers from different social

prejudices shows the implications of racism. It was good that there are a lot of

films portraying the struggle of white upper-class women for their rights, but it was great to

see for a change, the black women from history being celebrated and acknowledged. The

story does not need any more improvements because putting too much symbolism would

make the story overwhelming. I will certainly include this in one of my recommendations.