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I’ve been a computer programmer for 29-1/2 years, so I suppose I would be a tad biased toward a film that uses FORTRAN as a means of exacting socially relevant revenge. In “Hidden Figures,” the FORTRAN punch cards coded by Dorothy Vaughan ( Octavia Spencer ) prove that she is not only qualified to be the first employee supervisor of color in the space program, but that her “girls” (as she calls them) have the skills to code the IBM mainframe under her tutelage. Vaughan’s victory comes courtesy of the programming manual she had to lift from the segregated library that vengefully refused to loan it to her because it wasn’t in the “colored section.” When her shocked daughter protests her unconventional borrowing methods, Vaughan tells her, “I pay my taxes for this library just like everybody else!”

Vaughan is one of the three real-life African-American women who helped decipher and define the mathematics used during the space race in the 1960s. “Hidden Figures” tells their stories with some of the year’s best writing, directing and acting. Co-writer/director Theodore Melfi (adapting Margot Lee Shetterly's book with co-writer Allison Schroeder) has a light touch not often found in dramas like this, which makes the material all the more effective. He knows when to let a visual cue or cut tell the story, building on moments of repetition before paying off with scenes of great power. For example, to depict the absurdity of segregated bathrooms, Melfi repeats shots of a nervously tapping foot, followed by mile-long runs to the only available bathroom. This running joke culminates in a brilliantly acted, angry speech by Taraji P. Henson that is her finest cinematic moment to date.

Henson plays Katherine Johnson, a mathematician who, in the film’s opening flashback, is shown to have a preternatural affinity for math in her youth. Her success at obtaining the education she needs is hindered by Jim Crow, but she still manages to earn degrees in math and a job at NASA’s “Colored Computer” division. In an attempt to beat Russia to the moon, NASA has been looking for the nation’s best mathematicians. The importance of the space race forces them to accept qualified candidates of any stripe, including those society would normally discourage.

We meet the adult version of Johnson as she’s sitting in Vaughan’s stalled car with her NASA colleague Mary Jackson ( Janelle Monae ). The dialogue between the three women establishes their easy rapport with one another, and introduces their personalities. Vaughan is no-nonsense, Jackson is a wise ass with impeccable comic timing and Johnson is the clever optimist. They are similarly educated, though each has their own skill set the film will explore.

Vaughan’s mechanical skills are highlighted first: Spencer’s legs jut out from underneath her broken down car as she applies the trade taught to her by her father. Her supervisory expertise is also on display when a police officer shows up to investigate. Though the cop situation is resolved in an amusing, joyous fashion, “Hidden Figures” never undercuts the fears and oppressions of this era. They’re omnipresent even when we don’t see them, and the film develops a particular rhythm between problems and solutions that is cathartic without feeling forced.

At the request of Vaughan’s supervisor ( Kirsten Dunst ), Johnson is sent to a room full of White male mathematicians to assist in some literal rocket science. The calculations have stumped everyone, including Paul Stafford ( Jim Parsons ), the hotshot whose math Johnson is hired to check. Parsons is a bit of a weak link here—his petulance, while believable, is overplayed to the point of cartoonish villainy—but the overall attitude in the room made me shudder with bad memories of my own early career tribulations. I’ve been the only person of color in a less than inviting work environment, and many of Henson’s delicate acting choices vis-à-vis her body language held the eerie feeling of sense memory for me. Though she remains confident in her work and presents that confidence whenever questioned, Henson manifests on her person every hit at her dignity. You can see her trying to hold herself in check instead of going full-Cookie Lyon on her colleagues.

In addition to the unwelcome men in the room, Johnson also has to deal with the tough, though fair complaints of her grizzled supervisor, Al Harrison ( Kevin Costner ). Costner is a perfect fit here; he should consider running out the rest of his career in supporting mentor roles. He and Henson play off each other with an equal sense of bemusement, and when the film gives him something noble to do, it hides the cliché under the nostalgic sight of “ Bull Durham ”'s Crash Davis holding a baseball bat.

While Johnson tries to keep John Glenn (charmingly played by Glen Powell ) from exploding atop a rocket and Vaughan fights FORTRAN and Dunst for the right to be a supervisor, Janelle Monae is secretly walking off with the picture. Mary Jackson wants to be the first Black engineer at NASA, yet as with Vaughan’s library book, she’s hindered by Jim Crow practices. Jackson takes her case to court, and the scene where Monae wordlessly reacts to the outcome is one of the year’s best. With this and “ Moonlight ,” Monae has established herself as a fine actress able to handle both comedy and drama. The awards praise for Spencer is certainly justified, but Monae is the film’s true supporting player MVP.

Watching “Hidden Figures” I thought about how I would have felt had I seen this movie 30 years ago, when I made the decision to study math and computer science. I might have felt more secure in that decision, and certainly would have had better ideas on how to handle some of the thorny racial situations into which I found myself. The strange thing for me is that I saw more Black programmers in this movie than I’ve encountered in my entire career. I had few points of reference in this regard, and the I.T. world reflects that. Even today, some of my customers look at me funny when I show up to fix the problem.

Hopefully, “Hidden Figures” will inspire women and people of color (and hell, men too) with its gentle assertion that there’s nothing unusual nor odd about people besides White men being good at math. But my secret fantasy is that this feel-good film will be a huge hit at the box office. Under its great acting, bouncy Pharrell score and message is a film that’s as geeked out about math as a superhero film is about its comic book origins. So much so that it does my mathematician’s heart proud. It deserves to make as much money as any planet in the Marvel Universe does. This is one of the year's best films.

Odie Henderson

Odie "Odienator" Henderson has spent over 33 years working in Information Technology. He runs the blogs Big Media Vandalism and Tales of Odienary Madness. Read his answers to our Movie Love Questionnaire here .

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Film credits.

Hidden Figures (2016)

127 minutes

Taraji P. Henson as Katherine Johnson

Octavia Spencer as Dorothy Vaughn

Janelle Monae as Mary Jackson

Kevin Costner as Al Harrison

Aldis Hodge as Levi Jackson

Kirsten Dunst as Vivian Michael

Glen Powell as John Glenn

Mahershala Ali as Jim Johnson

Jim Parsons as Paul Stafford

Olek Krupa as Karl Zielinski

Theodore Melfi

Writer (based on the book by)

Margot Lee Shetterly
Allison Schroeder

Cinematographer

Mandy Walker
Peter Teschner
Benjamin Wallfisch
Pharrell Williams
Hans Zimmer

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What Sets the Smart Heroines of Hidden Figures Apart

Movies about brilliant scientific or mathematical minds often focus on their subject’s ego—not so with a new film about three African American women who worked at NASA in the ’60s.

When it comes to historical movies about brilliant minds, especially in the realms of math or the sciences, audiences can all but expect a tale of ego. Films such as A Beautiful Mind , The Theory of Everything , and The Imitation Game all lean in some way on the idea of the inaccessible genius—a mathematician, computer scientist, and theoretical physicist all somehow removed from the world.

Hidden Figures is not that kind of film: It’s a story of brilliance, but not of ego. It’s a story of struggle and willpower, but not of individual glory. Set in 1960s Virginia, the film centers on three pioneering African American women whose calculations for NASA were integral to several historic space missions, including John Glenn’s successful orbit of the Earth. These women—Katherine Johnson, Mary Jackson, and Dorothy Vaughan—were superlative mathematicians and engineers despite starting their careers in segregation-era America and facing discrimination at home, at school, and at work.

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And yet Hidden Figures pays tribute to its subjects by doing the opposite of what many biopics have done in the past—it looks closely at the remarkable person in the context of a community. Directed by Theodore Melfi ( St. Vincent ) and based on the nonfiction book of the same title by Margot Lee Shetterly, the film celebrates individual mettle, but also the way its characters consistently try to lift others up. They’re phenomenal at what they do, but they’re also generous with their time, their energy, and their patience in a way that feels humane, not saintly. By refracting the overlooked lives and accomplishments of Johnson, Vaughan, and Jackson through this lens, Hidden Figures manages to be more than an inspiring history lesson with wonderful performances.

From the start, Hidden Figures makes clear that it is about a trio, not a lone heroine. Katherine (played by a radiant Taraji P. Henson) is the film’s ostensible protagonist and gets the most screen time. But her story is woven tightly with those of Mary (Janelle Monáe) and Dorothy (Octavia Spencer); the former became NASA’s first black female engineer , the latter was a mathematician who became NASA’s first African American manager . (It’s worth noting that, as a dramatization, the film makes tweaks to the timeline, characters, and events of the books.)

Hidden Figures begins in earnest in 1961. Katherine, Mary, and Dorothy are part of NASA’s pool of human “computers” —employees, usually women, charged with doing calculations before the use of digital computers. Due to Virginia’s segregation laws, African American female computers have to work in a separate “colored” building at the Langley Research Center. But the U.S. is so desperate to beat the Soviet Union into space that NASA becomes a reluctant meritocracy: Because of her expertise in analytic geometry, Katherine is assigned to a special task group trying to get Glenn into orbit. She arrives at her new job to find she’s the sole brown face in the room.

Katherine is closest to the excitement, but Hidden Figures widens its scope beyond her. Mary must navigate layers of racist bureaucratic hurdles in her quest to become an engineer. Dorothy is fighting for a long overdue promotion, while the arrival of an IBM machine threatens to put her team of computers out of work. The women consistently out-think their higher-ranked (usually white, male) colleagues, whether by learning a new programming language, solving problems in wind-tunnel experiments, or calculating narrow launch windows for space missions. Each is uniquely aware of the broader stakes of her success—for other women, for black people, for black women, and for America at large—and this knowledge is as much an inspiration as it is a heavy weight.

Early on, Dorothy shares her ambivalence about Katherine’s prestigious new assignment. “Any upward movement is movement for us all. It’s just not movement for me,” she says, disappointed after a setback at work. It’s a subtle, but loaded point, and one of the most thought-provoking lines in the film. Of course she’s proud of Katherine, and of course Katherine is paving the way for others. But individual victories are often simply that—Katherine knocking down one pillar of discrimination doesn’t mean countless more don’t remain. Still, Dorothy’s frustration with her stagnation at work doesn’t translate to defeatism or selfishness. She spends much of the film maneuvering to protect her team’s jobs, even if it means risking her own status and security.

Their intellect may not be broadly relatable (again, they’re exceptional for a reason), but their sense of rootedness is. Though most of their time and energy go to their careers, the women of Hidden Figures don’t take their relationships with each other and with their friends and families for granted. If one gets held up at work for hours, the other two wait in the parking lot until they can all drive home. On the weekends, they go to church and neighborhood barbecues and spend time with their children. They don’t “have it all,” but they do strive for balance and connection. (Another “feel-good film” from 2016, Queen of Katwe , also used the concept of community and interdependence to undermine the built-up notion of isolated talent.)

Despite the racism and sexism Katherine, Dorothy, and Mary face, Hidden Figures is a decidedly un-somber affair. The breezy script by Melfi and Allison Schroeder opts not to dwell much on the particulars of aeronautical science; instead, it revels in the intelligence and warmth of its subjects, in their successes both in and out of the office, and it wants viewers to do so too. Hidden Figures doesn’t hide its efforts to be a crowdpleaser—depending on audience size, you can expect clapping and cheering after moments of victory, and loud groans whenever egregious acts of racism take place (there are many). A buoyant soundtrack by Pharrell Williams, Hans Zimmer, and Benjamin Wallfisch and regular doses of comic relief help keep the tone light and optimistic despite the serious issues at hand.

Rounding out Hidden Figures ’ all-star cast are Kevin Costner, as Katherine’s boss and eventual ally; an appropriately un-funny Jim Parsons as a new colleague of Katherine’s who can barely tolerate her presence; Kirsten Dunst as Dorothy’s manager and the epitome of the racist-who-thinks-she’s-not type; Glen Powell as an affable John Glenn; and Mahershala Ali as Katherine’s kindly love interest, Jim Johnson. Because of the engaging performances that Henson, Monáe, and Spencer give, each main character is fascinating to watch in her own right. But it’s their dynamic that makes it a joy to see them onscreen together.

Hidden Figures doesn’t try to push many artistic boundaries, but it tells its story so well that it doesn’t really have to. The film also avoids the most glaring missteps of historical movies that deal with race: At no point does it try to give viewers the impression that racism has been “solved,” and its white characters exist on a constantly shifting spectrum of racial enlightenment. What’s more, the film’s straightforward presentation belies its fairly radical subject matter. As K. Austin Collins notes at The Ringer , Hidden Figures “might be one of the few Hollywood movies about the civil rights era to imagine that black lives in the ’60s, particularly black women’s lives, were affected not only by racism but also by the space race and the Cold War.”

The Hidden Figures author, Shetterly, has discussed how the film only portrays a fraction of the individuals who worked on the space program— and how the movie was meant to speak to the experiences of the many African American women working at NASA at the time. Watching this particular story unfurl on the big screen, it’s hard not to think of how many more movies and books could be made about women like Katherine Johnson—talented women shut out of promotions and meetings and elite programs and institutions and, thus history, because they weren’t white. Even today, barriers remain. A 2015 study found 100 percent of women of color in STEM fields report experiencing gender bias at work, an effect often influenced by their race. Black and Latina women, for example, reported being mistaken for janitors (a scene that, fittingly, takes place in Hidden Figures ).

With the complex social forces that shaped its characters’ lives still so relevant today, Hidden Figures is powerful precisely because it’s not a solo portrait or a close character study. Certainly, Hollywood will be a better industry when there are more films about the egos and personal demons and grand triumphs of black women who helped to change the world. But Hidden Figures shines with respect for sisterhood and the communistic spirit, and in casting its spotlight wide, the film imparts a profound appreciation for what was achieved in history’s shadows.

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Review: ‘Hidden Figures’ Honors 3 Black Women Who Helped NASA Soar

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By A.O. Scott

Dec. 22, 2016

“Hidden Figures” takes us back to 1961, when racial segregation and workplace sexism were widely accepted facts of life and the word “computer” referred to a person, not a machine. Though a gigantic IBM mainframe does appear in the movie — big enough to fill a room and probably less powerful than the phone in your pocket — the most important computers are three African-American women who work at NASA headquarters in Hampton, Va. Assigned to data entry jobs and denied recognition or promotion, they would go on to play crucial roles in the American space program.

Based on Margot Lee Shetterly’s nonfiction book of the same title, the film, directed by Theodore Melfi (who wrote the script with Allison Schroeder), turns the entwined careers of Katherine Goble (later Johnson), Mary Jackson and Dorothy Vaughan into a rousing celebration of merit rewarded and perseverance repaid. Like many movies about the overcoming of racism, it offers belated acknowledgment of bravery and talent and an overdue reckoning with the sins of the past. And like most movies about real-world breakthroughs, “Hidden Figures” is content to stay within established conventions. The story may be new to most viewers, but the manner in which it’s told will be familiar to all but the youngest.

This is not necessarily a bad thing. There is something to be said for a well-told tale with a clear moral and a satisfying emotional payoff. Mr. Melfi, whose previous film was the heart-tugging, borderline-treacly Bill Murray vehicle “St. Vincent,” knows how to push our emotional buttons without too heavy a hand. He trusts his own skill, the intrinsic interest of the material and — above all — the talent and dedication of the cast. From one scene to the next, you may know more or less what is coming, but it is never less than delightful to watch these actors at work.

Start with the three principals, whose struggles at NASA take place as the agency is scrambling to send an astronaut into orbit. Katherine Goble is the central hidden figure, a mathematical prodigy played with perfect nerd charisma by Taraji P. Henson. Katherine is plucked from the computing room and assigned to a team that will calculate the launch coordinates and trajectory for an Atlas rocket. She receives a cold welcome — particularly from an engineer named Paul Stafford (Jim Parsons) — and is not spared the indignities facing a black woman in a racially segregated, gender-stratified workplace. The only bathroom she is allowed to use is in a distant building, and she horrifies her new co-workers when she helps herself to a cup of coffee.

Dorothy (Octavia Spencer) and Mary (Janelle Monáe) also face discrimination. Dorothy, who is in charge of several dozen computers, is repeatedly denied promotion to supervisor and treated with condescension by her immediate boss (Kirsten Dunst). The Polish-born engineer (Olek Krupa) with whom Mary works is more enlightened, but Mary runs into the brick wall of Virginia’s Jim Crow laws when she tries to take graduate-level physics courses.

Movie Review: ‘Hidden Figures'

The times critic a. o. scott reviews “hidden figures.”.

In “Hidden Figures,” three African-American women play crucial rolls in the 60s space race while battling racial and gender inequality at NASA. In his review A.O. Scott writes: Like many movies about the overcoming of racism, “Hidden Figures,” offers belated acknowledgment of bravery and talent and an overdue reckoning with the sins of the past. There is something to be said for a well-told tale with a clear moral and a satisfying emotional payoff. The director Ted Melfi knows how to push our emotional buttons without too heavy a hand. He trusts his own skill, the intrinsic interest of the material and—above all—the talent and dedication of the cast. From one scene to the next, you may know more or less what is coming, but it is never less than delightful to watch these actors at work.

“Hidden Figures” effectively conveys the poisonous normalcy of white supremacy, and the main characters’ determination to pursue their ambitions in spite of it and to live normal lives in its shadow. The racism they face does not depend on the viciousness or virtue of individual white people, and for the most part the white characters are not treated as heroes for deciding, at long last, to behave decently. Two of them, however, are singled out for commendation: John Glenn , portrayed by Glen Powell as a natural democrat with no time for racial hierarchies; and Al Harrison, the head of Katherine’s group, for whom the success of the mission is more important than color.

Kevin Costner, who plays Al, is an actor almost uniquely capable of upstaging through understatement. He is also one of the great gum-chewers in American cinema, a habit that, along with the flattop haircut and heavy-framed glasses, gives Al an aura of midcentury no-nonsense masculine competence. He desegregates the NASA bathrooms with a sledgehammer and stands up for Katherine in quieter but no less emphatic ways when her qualifications are challenged.

It’s a bit much, maybe, but Mr. Costner, as usual, does what he can to give the white men of America a good name. The movie, meanwhile, expands the schoolbook chronicle of the conquest of space beyond the usual heroes, restoring some of its idealism and grandeur in the process. It also embeds that history in daily life, departing from the televised spectacle of liftoffs and landings and the public drama of the civil rights movement to spend time with its heroines and their families at home and in church. The sweetest subplot involves the romance between Katherine, a widow with three daughters, and a handsome military officer played by Mahershala Ali.

“Hidden Figures” makes a fascinating and timely companion to “Loving,” Jeff Nichols’s film about the Virginia couple who challenged their state’s law against interracial marriage, which was struck down by the Supreme Court in 1967. The two movies take place in the same state in the same era, and focus on the quiet dramas that move history forward. They introduce you to real people you might wish you had known more about earlier. They can fill you with outrage at the persistence of injustice and gratitude toward those who had the grit to stand up against it.

Hidden Figures Rated PG. Your children should see it. Running time: 2 hours 6 minutes.

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“Hidden Figures” Is a Subtle and Powerful Work of Counter-History

By Richard Brody

Katherine Johnson Dorothy Vaughan and Mary Jackson in “Hidden Figures.”

The basic virtue of “Hidden Figures” (which opens on December 25th), and it’s a formidable one, is to proclaim with a clarion vibrancy that, were it not for the devoted, unique, and indispensable efforts of three black women scientists, the United States might not have successfully sent people into space or to the moon and back. The movie is set mainly in 1961 and 1962, in Virginia, where a key NASA research center was (and is) based, and the movie is aptly and thoroughly derisive toward the discriminatory laws and practices that prevailed at the time.

The insults and indignities that black residents of Virginia, and black employees of NASA , unremittingly endured are integral to the drama. Those segregationist rules and norms—and the personal attitudes and actions that sustained them—are unfolded with a clear, forceful, analytical, and unstinting specificity. The efforts of black Virginians to cope with relentless ambient racism and, where possible, to point it out, resist it, overcome it, and even defeat it are the focus of the drama. “Hidden Figures” is a film of calm and bright rage at the way things were—an exemplary reproach to the very notion of political nostalgia. It depicts repugnant attitudes and practices of white supremacy that poisoned earlier generations’ achievements and that are inseparable from those achievements.

“Hidden Figures” is a subtle and powerful work of counter-history, or, rather, of a finally and long-deferred accurate history, that fills in the general outlines of these women’s roles in the space program. Its redress of the record begins in West Virginia in 1926, where the sixth-grade math prodigy Katherine Coleman is given a scholarship to a school that one of her teachers refers to as the only one in the region for black children that goes beyond the eighth grade. She quickly displays her genius there—but the school’s narrow horizons suggests the sharply limited opportunities for black people over all.

The nature of those limits is indicated in the very next scene, which cuts ahead to a lonely road in Virginia in 1961. There, a car is stalled, its hood open. Katherine is there with her two other African-American friends and colleagues. She’s sitting pensively in the passenger seat; Dorothy Vaughan (Octavia Spencer) is beneath the engine, trying to fix it; and Mary Jackson (Janelle Monáe) is standing impatiently beside the car. A police cruiser approaches. They tense up; Dorothy says, “No crime in a broken-down car,” and Mary responds, “No crime being Negro, neither.” Their fearful interaction with the officer—a white man, of course, with a billy club in hand and a condescending bearing—is resolved with a comedic moment brought about by the women’s deferential irony. What emerges, however, is nothing less than an instance in a reign of terror.

Dorothy is the manager and de-facto supervisor of a group of “computers”—about thirty black women, all skilled mathematicians—that includes Katherine and Mary. Dorothy is awaiting a formal promotion to supervisor, but a talk with a senior administrator makes clear that it’s not to be; the clear but unspoken reason is her race. (Tellingly, Dorothy addresses that official, played by Kirsten Dunst, as “Mrs. Mitchell,” who, in turn, calls her by her first name.) Mary, endowed with engineering skill, is summoned to a team led by an engineer named Zielinski (Olek Krupa), a Polish-Jewish émigré who escaped the Holocaust and who encourages her to seek formal certification as an engineer. To do so, Mary will have to take additional classes—but the only school that offers them is a segregated one, whites-only, from which she’s barred.

When NASA astronauts ceremoniously arrive at the research center, the black women “computers” are forced to stand together as a separate group, conspicuously divided from the other scientists. (Only John Glenn, played by Glen Powell, greets them, and does so warmly, shaking their hands and lingering to chat with them about their work.)

As for Katherine—now Katherine Goble, the widowed mother of three young girls—she’s plucked from the pool of mathematicians to join the main research group, headed by Al Harrison (Kevin Costner). There, she’s the only black person and the only woman (other than the secretary, played by Kimberly Quinn). She once again rapidly displays her mathematical genius, but not before being taken for the department custodian; forced to drink from a coffeepot labelled “colored”; treated dismissively by the lead researcher, Paul Stafford (Jim Parsons); and compelled to walk a half-mile to her former office in order to use the “colored ladies’ room.” (Moreover, the contrast between that depleted and dilapidated facility and the well-appointed and welcoming white-women’s bathroom proves the meaning of “separate but unequal.”)

Each of the three women has a particular conflict to confront, a particular focus in the struggle for equality. Mary’s struggle takes place in a public forum: she petitions a Virginia state court for permission to take the needed night classes in a segregated school. She’s not represented by a lawyer, and speaks on her own behalf; but, rather than making her case in open court, she makes a personal plea to the judge that’s as much about him and his outlook as it is about her, and her work and its usefulness. What her plea isn’t about is law, rights, or justice.

The omission is no accident; it’s set up by dramatic contrast with the angry insistence of Mary’s husband, Levi (Aldis Hodge), a civil-rights activist, that she not bother pursuing a job as an engineer: “You can’t apply for freedom. . . . It’s got to be demanded, taken.” Mary says that there’s “more than one way” to get opportunities, but the deck of this debate is stacked by the terms in which Levi couches it, saying that there’s no such thing as a woman engineer—at least, not a black one—and blaming her for not being home often enough to take proper care of their children.

Dorothy’s pursuit of a formal promotion to supervisor also takes place against the backdrop of the civil-rights movement. She learns that her entire department of human “computers” will soon be replaced by an electronic computer—an enormous I.B.M. mainframe that’s being installed. A gifted technician, Dorothy seeks out a book from the local library (a segregated library from which she’s thrown out), in which she’ll learn the programming language Fortran; she soon becomes NASA ’s resident expert. On that trip to the library, in the company of her two sons on the cusp of adolescence, they witness a protest by civil-rights activists chanting “segregation must go” and see police officers, with police dogs, approaching the protesters. Dorothy and her sons pause and look, until she tells them to “pay attention that we’re not part of that trouble.” But, sitting in the back of the bus with them, she emphasizes that “separate and equal aren’t the same thing,” and adds, “If you act right, you are right.”

Katherine, too, fights for her dignity and for opportunities at work. Her calculations very soon prove indispensable to the effort to put the first American astronaut, Alan Shepard, into outer space. (The scene in which she displays her calculations to the entire office of scientists features a small but brilliant stroke of film editing, which suggests that she envisioned the effect of that bold step before she took it.) She’s fighting prejudice against blacks, against women (none has ever been admitted to a Pentagon briefing, where she can get the information she needs for her analyses), and against bureaucracy itself. Paul, who has been the department’s resident genius, and to whom she reports, is resentful of his subordinate—a black woman, for good measure—outshining him in mathematical talent and analytical insight.

Eventually, upbraided by the head of the department, Al, in the presence of the entire staff, Katherine explodes with rage, setting forth the full litany of indignities to which she’s subjected because of her skin color, before storming out. But this sublimely righteous outburst is posed on a solid meritocratic basis. Katherine isn’t the only black woman to have worked in the main research department under Al; there has been a veritable parade of black women “computers” stationed in that department, and each has been found wanting and has been sent back to the pool. As a result, none has effected any change in the status of black employees or of women at NASA . Katherine’s outburst is effective because Katherine, unlike her predecessors, is indispensable. Taking her claims to heart, Al plays a heroic role, championing Katherine’s work and treating her with due respect—but his heroism is a conditional and practical one, spurred by his single-minded devotion to the space program.

In “Hidden Figures,” the civil-rights movement isn’t just a barely sketched backdrop; it’s in virtual competition with the efforts in personal advancement and achievement heroically made by the three women at the center of the film. In the movie, the three women never speak directly of civil rights. In the warmhearted romance at the center of the movie—Katherine’s relationship with Col. Jim Johnson (Mahershala Ali)—the subject never comes up. (Katherine Johnson is now ninety-eight; a title card at the end of the film declares that she and Johnson recently celebrated their fifty-sixth wedding anniversary.) The movie presents three women whose life experiences have been extraordinary; their work, their personal lives, and their struggle for justice are uncompromisingly heroic. What the movie is missing, above all, is their voices.

These women are not in any way submissive or passive. On the contrary, each one speaks up and takes action at great personal risk. (For instance, Dorothy steals a book that the library won't let her borrow and then speaks sharply to the guard who hustles her and her sons out.) The movie's emphasis on individual action and achievement in the face of vast obstacles is both beautiful and salutary, but its near-effacement of collective organization and political activity at a time when they were at their historical apogee—for that matter, its elision of politics as such—narrows the drama and, all the more grievously, the characters at its center.

What the women at the center of “Hidden Figures” lived through in their youth, in the deep age of Jim Crow, and, later, at a time of protest and of legal change, remains unspoken; their wisdom and insight remain unexpressed. For all the emotional power and historical redress of the movie—above all, in the simple recognition of the centrality of its three protagonists to the modern world—it pushes to the fore a moderation, based solely on personal accomplishment, in pursuit of justice. This is different from the civil-rights goal of a universal equality based on humanity alone, extended to the ordinary as well as to the exceptional. This is, by no means, a complaint about the real-life people on whom the movie is based; it’s purely a matter of aesthetics, a result of decisions by the director and screenwriter, Theodore Melfi, and his co-writer, Allison Schroeder, about how they imagined and developed the characters. (I found myself thinking, by contrast, of recently published stories by the late filmmaker Kathleen Collins , with their incisive observations regarding participants and observers of civil-rights activism.)

Melfi and Schroeder are white; perhaps they conceived the film to be as nonthreatening to white viewers as possible, or perhaps they anticipated that it would be released at a time of promised progress. Instead, it’s being released in a time of resurgent, unabashed racism. The time for protest has returned; for all the inspired celebration of hitherto unrecognized black heroes that “Hidden Figures” offers, and all the retrospective outrage that “Hidden Figures” sparks, I can only imagine the movie as it might have been made, much more amply, imaginatively, and resonantly, linking history and the present tense, by Ava DuVernay or Spike Lee, Julie Dash or Charles Burnett.

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Hidden figures, common sense media reviewers.

Inspiring true story of African American women at NASA.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

With determination and intelligence, you can overc

Katherine, Mary, and Dorothy are wonderful role mo

A couple of kisses, some slow dancing, and an ackn

"Damn," "hell," "bastard," "Jesus Christ" (as an e

Adult women drink in one scene and joke about gett

Positive Messages

With determination and intelligence, you can overcome almost any obstacle. The women aren't afraid of being the "first" or the "only" (black) women in a room or on a team. Themes include communication, integrity, perseverance, and teamwork.

Positive Role Models

Katherine, Mary, and Dorothy are wonderful role models. They all studied and worked hard and persevered in fields that few women -- much less women of color -- excelled in at the time. They're disciplined, intelligent women who think outside the box to brainstorm ideas and make themselves indispensable. They also shine as examples of pioneering working women who had families to take care of, too. And they don't let the obvious and overt racism they have to face stop them.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

A couple of kisses, some slow dancing, and an acknowledgement that men of all races can be handsome or "fine."

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

"Damn," "hell," "bastard," "Jesus Christ" (as an exclamation), and "Negro" are used. "Colored" is used to identify which restrooms, libraries, and even which coffee pot the African-American women can use.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Adult women drink in one scene and joke about getting a little tipsy.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that Hidden Figures is based on the inspiring true story of three brilliant African American women who worked at NASA in the 1950s and '60s as "human computers" -- making calculations and contributions that helped launch the manned spaceflight program. Dorothy Vaughn ( Octavia Spencer ), Mary Jackson ( Janelle Monáe ), and Katherine Johnson ( Taraji P. Henson ) were engineers and computers at NASA at a time when both women and African Americans were still widely discriminated against, particularly in segregationist Virginia. where NASA's Langley Research Center is based. There's a little bit of romance (a few kisses, flirty comments, and slow dancing) and a bit of salty language (mostly along the lines of "damn," "hell," and "Jesus Christ" as an exclamation). The film also offers a realistic look at the racial tensions of the Civil Rights era (segregated bathrooms, libraries, schools, facilities), and audiences will learn a lot about these pioneering women and what they had to overcome to make their mark at NASA. They're excellent role models, and their story is full of positive messages and themes, including integrity, perseverance, teamwork, and communication. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

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Based on 60 parent reviews

Such a wonderful story

What's the story.

Based on the nonfiction book by Margot Lee Shetterly , HIDDEN FIGURES is the true story of three African-American women who worked for NASA in the 1950s and '60s. They served as "human computers," doing complex mathematics and engineering tasks to help launch the manned spaceflight program -- particularly, sending astronaut John Glenn ( Glen Powell ) into orbit. Katherine Johnson ( Taraji P. Henson ), Dorothy Vaughan ( Octavia Spencer ), and Mary Jackson ( Janelle Monáe ) are all brilliant women who've landed jobs as computers at NASA's Langley Research Center (in the segregated West Area Computers division). When Al Harrison ( Kevin Costner ), director of the Space Task Group, needs someone who can do theoretical math to help NASA with calculations that would outperform the Russians in the Space Race, Katherine is assigned to his team. Meanwhile, Dorothy struggles to be named supervisor of her group, and Mary goes to court so she can go to graduate school for engineering.

Is It Any Good?

Henson, Spencer, and Monáe's stellar performances propel this feel-good biographical drama that teaches audiences about a little-known aspect of NASA's history. Many Civil Rights-era stories are understandably upsetting, showing the unflinchingly ugly institutional racism that African Americans had to endure. But Hidden Figures remains a crowd-pleaser because the main characters, while faced with insidious day-to-day discrimination (segregated bathrooms, offices, libraries, schools), don't endure the kind of horrific violence depicted in Selma . The three stars are all fantastic, with Henson clearly enjoying playing genius, widowed mother Katherine. Spencer is, as usual, spot on as the focused Dorothy, who's determined to make sure her group doesn't lose their jobs once the "real" computers arrive. And Monae impresses with another memorable supporting turn (she also shines in Moonlight ). The movie's minor antagonists include Kirsten Dunst as Mrs. Michael, the head of all the human computers, who acts condescendingly toward Dorothy and her team, and Jim Parsons as task force supervisor Paul Stafford, who's unhappy that his boss wants all his figures checked by a black woman.

The friendship between the three leads is the heart of the story, but the action favors Katherine, who's working directly with the team that launches Glenn into orbit. Her extraordinary abilities as a mathematician earn her Al Harrison's trust, top-secret clearance, and a chance to be there when key decisions are made. Audiences may wonder what was fictionalized for the adaptation and whether Glenn was really as open-minded, gracious, and flirtatious as he's portrayed in the movie. Regardless of which details might be the result of a little creative license, the pre-credits tribute picturing the real Johnson, Vaughan, and Jackson make it clear that Hidden Figures is a story that needed to be told -- and it's told in a triumphant manner.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about the true story behind Hidden Figures . How accurate do you think the movie is? Why might filmmakers sometimes choose to alter the facts in movies based on real life? How could you find out more about the women and people of color who worked for NASA in its early years?

Who are the role models in this story? How do they demonstrate perseverance , teamwork , communication , and integrity ? Why are those important character strengths ?

How do the lessons from the Civil Rights movement apply today? How far have we come? How are people still discriminated against?

Movie Details

In theaters : December 25, 2016
On DVD or streaming : April 11, 2017
Cast : Taraji P. Henson , Octavia Spencer , Janelle Monáe
Director : Theodore Melfi
Inclusion Information : Female actors, Black actors, Non-Binary actors, Pansexual actors, Queer actors
Studio : Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation
Genre : Drama
Topics : STEM , Great Girl Role Models , History , Science and Nature
Character Strengths : Communication , Integrity , Perseverance , Teamwork
Run time : 126 minutes
MPAA rating : PG
MPAA explanation : thematic elements and some language
Award : Common Sense Selection
Last updated : May 10, 2024

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Home — Essay Samples — Entertainment — Hidden Figures — Hidden Figures: A Summary and Analysis

Hidden Figures: a Summary and Analysis

Categories: Hidden Figures

About this sample

Words: 808 |

Published: Jan 30, 2024

Words: 808 | Pages: 2 | 5 min read

Introduction, summary of the movie, analysis of key themes, examination of historical accuracy, analysis of film techniques and directing choices, comparison with other movies addressing similar themes, a. representation and overcoming stereotypes, b. intersectionality and discrimination.

Melfi, T. (Director). (2016). Hidden Figures [Motion Picture]. USA: 20th Century Fox.
Olsen, K. (2017). Making Hidden Figures: How a group of women helped NASA get to the moon. History, 1-8.
McGill, A. (2018). Hidden figures: The rise of intersectional feminism. Women's Studies International Forum, 69, 27-32.
Slate, J. R. (2017). Hidden Figures and the appeal of inspirational history. The History Teacher, 50(1), 69-85.

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Pepperdine Graphic

Film Review: ‘Hidden Figures’ Tells an Important but Over-Simplified Story

February 22, 2021 by Grace Wood

The “Hidden Figures” film poster depicts Janelle Monáe, Taraji P. Henson and Octavia Spencer portraying their respective roles as Mary Jackson, Katherine Johnson and Dorothy Vaughan, who worked at NASA during the 1960s. “Hidden Figures” grossed for $326 million worldwide. Photo courtesy of 20th Century Studios

“Hidden Figures” (2017) tells the true story of three brilliant Black female mathematicians — Katherine Johnson ( Taraji P. Henson ), Dorothy Vaughan ( Octavia Spencer ) and Mary Jackson ( Janelle Monáe ) — who use their intellect to supersede both segregation and sexism at NAS A and propel the United States in the Space Race that dominated the 1960s. “Hidden Figures” is a telling and motivating movie for anyone to watch in honor of Black History Month .

The film, directed by Theodore Melfi , is loosely based on Margot Lee Shetterly’s novel by the same name. “Hidden Figures” features several other prominent actors in supporting roles, including Kevin Costner as Al Harrison, Jim Parsons as Paul Stafford, Kirsten Dunst as Vivian Mitchell and Mahershala Ali as Colonel Jim Johnson.

While “Hidden Figures” introduces many important themes regarding racial injustice and gender inequality, it is apparent that Melfi’s goal was to tell a heartwarming story rather than a historically accurate one. Due to the creative liberties Melfi takes with the plot of “Hidden Figures,” it is hard to establish what Johnson’s actual experience at NASA was like versus what Melfi thought would make for an inspiring film.

“Hidden Figures” highlights the story of Katherine Johnson, a girl from West Virginia whose teachers identify as a genius from an early age. After graduating from West Virginia State College at 18, Johnson becomes one of the first three Black students selected to study math in a graduate program at West Virginia University .

Johnson goes on to work at the Langley Research Center for the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, which later became NASA, in Virginia in their West Area Computing Unit , an all-women segregated group who, as human computers, complete intricate mathematical calculations by hand. Here, Johnson works alongside Vaughan and Jackson. While all three women aspire to achieve higher-level positions within NACA, the barrier of racism prohibits them from being promoted.

After recognizing Johnson’s immense talent for analytic geometry, her white supervisor, Mitchell, promotes her to join Al Harrison’s Space Task Group . The group is under immense pressure from the US government to put a man in space.

As the first Black woman to join the Space Task Group, Johnson experiences abject racism and discrimination despite her critical contributions. In the film, her coworkers refuse to share the communal coffeemaker with her, and due to segregation, Johnson must walk over half a mile to use the closest restroom for women of color.

In real life, however, Johnson has been quoted as saying that during her time at NASA, she just used the “whites only” restroom anyway. Additionally, NASA was officially desegregated in 1958 (the film takes place in 1961). While Melfi may have included this part of the story to shed light on the reality of segregation in other areas of the country at the time, the addition of this story line strays from what Johnson actually experienced at NASA.

After successfully calculating the numbers needed to launch the astronaut John Glenn ( Glen Powell ) into space, Johnson is told she will no longer be needed in the Space Task Group. On the day of Glenn’s launch, the IBM computer makes an error only Johnson can solve; Harrison frantically calls her at the eleventh hour, and her last-minute calculations ensure that Glenn’s Friendship 7 mission launches and lands safely. While it is true that Johnson made hasty calculations to help the Friendship 7 get off the ground, in real life, Johnson was not actually invited into the control room to watch the launch like she did in the film.

The end of the film provides a glimpse into what the real Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan and Mary Jackson went on to accomplish. Johnson made vital calculations for the Apollo 11 and Space Shuttle missions, Vaughan continued to serve as NASA’s first Black supervisor and Jackson became NASA’s first Black woman engineer. In 2015, President Obama awarded Jackson the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

In terms of subject matter and casting choices, “Hidden Figures” is excellent. The film sheds light on issues the Black community faces that are especially relevant today, including workplace discrimination and the experience of having accomplishments diminished in favor of their white counterparts. Additionally, Henson’s performance is exceptional and punctuates the film with moments of believable conviction and emotion.

The score to this film is upbeat and lively, and it serves the plot well. By blending older tracks from Ray Charles , Miles Davis and The Miracles with fresh additions from Pharrell Williams , Mary J. Blige and Alicia Keys , the music provides timely emotional context to important scenes.

Despite its many successes, “Hidden Figures” still falls short. It feels like Melfi was so dedicated to the feel-good nature of the storyline that some important struggles the main characters faces are quickly introduced and then readily glossed over, which doesn’t allow the audience to fully absorb the gravity of the racism and sexism that women like Johnson, Vaughan and Jackson experienced. A throwaway scene at the beginning of the film alluding to police brutality encapsulates this sentiment.

In some instances, Harrison’s character alludes to a white savior complex . After Harrison confronts Johnson about her long bathroom breaks, she reveals to him the reason she takes so long is because of the distance she has to travel to the women of color’s restroom. This leads Harrison to literally smash down the ‘Colored Ladies Room’ sign in the film, declaring “Here at NASA, we all pee the same color.” However, this scene — along with the scene where Harrison allows Johnson into the control room to watch the Friendship 7 launch — never actually happened in real life. In fact, Al Harrison is not even a real character.

Interestingly, Harrison’s character both diminishes and conflates Katherine Johnson’s experiences as a member of the Space Task Group. Melfi’s attempt to present such a clear-cut narrative, in which the white man creates a racist environment and then alleviates it, takes away from the complicated real-life experiences of Black women at NASA.

While “Hidden Figures” makes meaningful strides by telling an important and historically overlooked story, adhering with increased diligence to the experiences of the women who lived them would’ve made for a better, more well-rounded film.

“Hidden Figures” is available on Amazon Prime Video , Disney+ and Hulu .

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Email Grace Wood: [email protected]

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Hidden Figures

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Watch Hidden Figures with a subscription on Disney+, rent on Fandango at Home, Prime Video, or buy on Fandango at Home, Prime Video.

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In heartwarming, crowd-pleasing fashion, Hidden Figures celebrates overlooked -- and crucial -- contributions from a pivotal moment in American history.

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Theodore Melfi

Taraji P. Henson

Katherine Johnson

Octavia Spencer

Dorothy Vaughan

Janelle Monáe

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Mahershala Ali

Jim Johnson

Hidden Figures is a groundbreaking book. But the film? Not so much

Has Hollywood’s need for the feel-good factor done Margot Shetterley’s book – and the history of Nasa’s black women mathematicians – a disservice?

I n the opening scenes of Hidden Figures , released in the UK on Friday, we are introduced to Dorothy Vaughan – played with verve and wit by Octavia Spencer – as a pair of legs sticking out from under the bonnet of a broken-down car. One detail immediately stands out: Vaughan’s legs are light beige and shiny. She is wearing stockings that don’t match her skin tone, presumably because that was all that was available to her.

Although the scene goes on to establish the deep racism of the time in more direct ways, the small detail of the stockings tries to put viewers in the shoes of someone like Vaughan. It reminds us how these women were made to feel like outsiders in their own country in small and large ways, even as they helped the nation succeed on the global stage.

In writing history, the devil is always in the details. Margot Shetterly’s groundbreaking book, Hidden Figures , reorients our view of the space race by telling the stories of Nasa’s black women mathematicians. It casts them as protagonists in the grand drama of American technological history rather than mere details. But the film based on Shetterly’s book straddles the line between allowing these women to be the protagonists of their story and crowding them out of the spotlight. The bravura performances of Taraji P. Henson (who plays Katherine Johnson), Janelle Monáe (who plays Mary Jackson), and Octavia Spencer are hindered by the film’s framing.

The film follows Vaughan, Johnson, and Jackson as they work feverishly on the calculations for the launch and re-entry of John Glenn’s 1962 mission as the first American to orbit the Earth. In the early 1960s, the US was falling behind the Soviets in the space race: already the USSR had launched the first satellite and put the first person into orbit. By the time of Glenn’s orbit, the US was desperate for a win in the space race, and – by extension – the Cold War.

Mary Jackson at work in NASA’s Langley Research Centre.

As the women race to complete the needed calculations, Johnson is promoted, owing to her exceptional mathematical talent. While this makes her into the film’s hero, it also puts her into direct contact with many of the white, male Nasa engineers who see her as a black woman first and only secondarily as a person and coworker. At this point, Nasa manager Al Harrison, played by Kevin Costner, comes into the frame.

Despite being an amalgam of three different Nasa employees, Harrison somehow seems to do no actual work. Perhaps this is a subtle satire of the management class, but it also means his character simply takes up space in someone else’s story. Costner is shoehorned into the story as the white male hero who lifts the women up. The role is problematic, uncritically centring an unremarkable white man in a story about three brilliant black women, and the decision to cast a well-known star steals focus from the female leads. Other men in the film manage to support the main characters without stealing the limelight, like the Jewish émigré who supports Jackson’s attempts to get the certification she needed to become the first black woman at Nasa to hold the title of engineer. Harrison’s character, meanwhile, is an unfortunate meta-commentary on Hollywood’s continued reliance on racist and sexist storytelling tropes that weakens the film and its message.

Henson, Monáe, and Spencer shine in their roles when given the space to do so. Spencer’s Vaughan engages with the most important of technological advances in a way that shows her brilliance and foresight. That technology is not the space capsule, but Nasa’s new IBM computer. Vaughan sees the writing on the wall for her section of women “computers” with the arrival of a machine designed to make their jobs unnecessary. Instead of fighting the change she immediately warms to the new machine, learning to program in FORTRAN without being asked and getting the women she supervises to make themselves indispensable to the coming technological regime by becoming early computer experts.

In the end, Hidden Figures is an often uplifting film with problematic elements and myopic framing. None of those problems are present in Shetterly’s book, which deftly moves between talking about people and institutions in ways that make the book both a joy to read and an instruction manual for other historians writing the history of technology. Unlike the book, the film tells a straightforward, simplistic story, and does so with rather plodding pacing and humdrum cinematography.

It also leaves unresolved the tension between what the women are doing and the reasons they’re doing it. In the film, there’s no discussion of the problematic fact that these talented women are submerged in the process of helping the US fight a Cold War designed to extend American political hegemony – the same structure that has subjugated them and their loved ones. As Shetterly puts it in her book:

So much money spent so that ... a dozen white men could take the express train to a lifeless world? Negro women and men could barely go to the next state without worrying about predatory police, restaurants that refused to serve them, and service stations that wouldn’t let them buy gas or use the bathroom.

Though the film inserts a few scenes that hint at the indignity and terror of living as a black woman in the Jim Crow South, it oddly keeps racism at arms length from a narrative that, without it, would never have existed.

Overall, Hidden Figures is an enjoyable but limited film, despite excellent performances from its female leads. Shetterly’s book focuses on the lives of remarkable people who, up to now, have been ignored because they were women and because they were black. It shows why they were important while allowing them to remain human. The film takes the stories of three of these women and gives them the Hollywood treatment. It tries to be a feel-good movie about a historical period in which black people were often brutally denied their civil rights, and it lionizes a problematic technological proxy war. Disappointingly, the film hides the details that are most meaningful and instructive as we face an era of renewed international turmoil, misguided technological utopianism, and resurgent racism.

Marie Hicks’s book, Programmed Inequality: How Britain Discarded Women Technologists and Lost Its Edge in Computing , looks at how gendered labour discrimination caused the decline of British computing. She can be found on Twitter as @histoftech .

Hidden Figures
History of science

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HIDDEN FIGURES

SUBJECTS — U.S. 1940 – 1991, Diversity/African-American, and Virginia; Mathematics; Science-Technology; Biography: Katherine Johnson;

SOCIAL-EMOTIONAL LEARNING — Courage; Human Rights;

MORAL-ETHICAL EMPHASIS — Respect.

AGE : 13+; MPAA Rating PG for thematic elements and some language;

Drama; 2016, 127 minutes; Color.

Benefits of the Movie Possible Problems Parenting Points Selected Awards & Cast Helpful Background

Using the Movie in the Classroom Discussion Questions Social-Emotional Learning Moral-Ethical Emphasis

Assignments and Projects CCSS Anchor Standards Links to the Internet Bibliography

MOVIE WORKSHEETS & STUDENT HANDOUTS

TWM offers the following worksheets to keep students’ minds on the movie and direct them to the lessons that can be learned from the film.

Film Study Worksheet for a Work of Historical Fiction and

Worksheet for Cinematic and Theatrical Elements and Their Effects .

Teachers can modify the movie worksheets to fit the needs of each class. See also TWM’s Historical Fiction in Film Cross-Curricular Homework Project .

DESCRIPTION

From the 1930s to the advent of the digital computer in the early 1960s, several hundred female “human computers” were hired by the federal government. Their task was to calculate numbers and to solve the equations necessary for new generations of airplanes, the first American rockets, and the first U.S. manned space flights. They worked with pen, paper, and analog calculating machines. The need for these workers was so great that even in those days of rampant racial discrimination, black women were hired as well as whites. The human computers reported to the Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, operated by the National Advisory Committee on Aeronautics (NACA) and its successor, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

“Hidden Figures” is the story of three black women who made important contributions to the U.S. Space program both before and after the “human computers” were replaced by digital computers. The three real-life heroines of the movie are:

Dorothy Vaughan, who supervises the “colored computers.” She sees that digital computers are the wave of the future and learns the prototype programming language FORTRAN, orients herself to a room-sized IBM computer, and encourages the women in her section to do the same.
Katherine Goble Johnson, a gifted mathematician, performs essential calculations and makes important theoretical contributions for determining the trajectories and orbits of America’s first satellites and manned space missions. Backing up a digital computer’s early efforts, she confirms final calculations for John Glenn’s history-making orbit of the Earth.
Mary Jackson takes on Virginia’s stridently segregationist education system to attain the graduate qualifications that allow her to become NASA’s first female African-American engineer.

The women face entrenched racist and sexist attitudes. However, their persistence and outstanding work boost the U.S. presence in space and blaze a path forward for achievement based on merit. The movie closely follows Margot Shetterly’s meticulously researched, award-winning, 2016 historical work of the same name. The validity of the film is confirmed by Katherine Johnson’s posthumously published memoir, My Remarkable Journey, at page 7, in which she states, that, “75% of what was shown in the movie is accurate,”

SELECTED AWARDS & CAST

Selected Awards: 2017 Academy Awards Nominations: Best Picture; Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role (Octavia Spencer); Best Adapted Screenplay; 2017 Golden Globe Nominations: Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture (Octavia Spencer); Best Original Score – Motion Picture; 2017 Screen Actors Guild Awards: Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture.

Featured Actors: Taraji P. Henson as Katherine G. Johnson; Octavia Spencer as Dorothy Vaughan; Janelle Monáe as Mary Jackson; Kevin Costner as Al Harrison; Kirsten Dunst as Vivian Mitchell; Jim Parsons as Paul Stafford; Mahershala Ali as Colonel Jim Johnson; Aldis Hodge as Levi Jackson; Glen Powell as John Glenn; Kimberly Quinn as Ruth; Olek Krupa as Karl Zielinski; Kurt Krause as Sam Turner; Ken Strunk as Jim Webb.

Director: Theodore Melfi

BENEFITS OF THE MOVIE

“Hidden Figures” is well-crafted historical fiction that is inspirational for everyone, especially for girls and students of color. It tells a story that was “never hidden, but unseen.” The Mses. Vaughan, Johnson, and Jackson are outstanding role models for young people trying to break through barriers of prejudice and glass ceilings in employment. Additionally, the film provides a historical link to today’s STEM and STEAM initiatives in schools and can encourage students to seek out programs that will reinforce their skills and lead to careers in science and technical fields. The movie provides excellent opportunities for class discussion and assignments. [The quotation “never hidden, but unseen” is from Hidden to Modern Figures: Frequently Asked Questions , a NASA website, accessed April 24, 2017.]

Students will be introduced to: (1) a fascinating episode in American history; (2) the struggles of black women to reach racial and gender parity in the workplace; (3) the accomplishments of black women in technical fields and their contributions to America’s efforts in aeronautics and the space race of the second half of the 20th century; (4) the disruptive influence of WWII and the Cold War on sexist employment practices and racial discrimination; and (5) a few of the despicable aspects of Jim Crow.

POSSIBLE PROBLEMS

Parenting points.

Watch the film with your children and tell them that the three leading actresses in the movie portray women who actually worked at NASA and that the film gives us a good idea of their experiences. Also, be sure to put the film into perspective. Hidden Figures doesn’t show the millions of people denied jobs due only to the color of their skin. It doesn’t show the full extent of the humiliation endured by black citizens of the United States living in the South during the “Jim Crow” era, the late 1800s through to the 1960s. During that time African Americans were humiliated on a daily basis and denied access to public facilities. In addition, they suffered from discrimination in education, employment and housing. At times they were beaten and lynched.

Beginning with small steps in the 1940s (President Roosevelt’s executive orders requiring the hiring of some African Americans in defense industries) and gaining strength each year with the Civil Rights Movement, the United States has developed a growing tradition of inclusion and equal opportunity for minority citizens that runs counter to the shameful tradition of racism. (As of January 2022 millions of African Americans have good jobs and have entered the middle-class. We have elected a black President, twice. There have been two black Secretaries of State and a black man heads the Department of Defense.) The work of well-intentioned Americans is to continue to bend the moral arc of the Universe toward reaching the ideals of the the Declaration of Independence.

HELPFUL BACKGROUND

Dorothy Vaughan

Katherine Johnson

Mary Jackson

The US National Advisory Committee on Aeronautics (NACA) was the forerunner of NASA, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

NACA was established in 1917, at the end of the First World War, on the grounds of Langley Air Force Base in Hampton, Virginia. It was part of the effort to develop America’s fledgling aeronautical sector. In the mid-1930s, Langley began hiring female, or “girl,” mathematicians to compute solutions to equations using pen, paper, and analog adding machines. The women were called “computers.”

By the 1930s it was clear to American leaders that crucial battles in the next war would be fought in the air. It was therefore essential to transform America’s unimpressive aircraft arsenal into a powerful aerial armada. This opened the door a crack for women at Langley. During WWII, in the 1940s, when many of the men were sent to soldier in Europe and the Pacific, the need for manpower to fuel the American war materiel machine became a need for woman power as well. Thus, the door for women to serve in technical fields opened a little further.

Melvin Butler, the man responsible for filling the burgeoning job positions at Langley, devised recruitment tools designed to appeal to housewives looking for a different kind of work. His advertisements exhorted them to, “Reduce your household duties . . . .” He issued a challenge, citing the need for “women who are not afraid to roll up their sleeves . . . .” Shetterly, p. 5.

While increasing numbers of women were being integrated into the workforce, another social change was underway. In 1941, as American industry geared up to produce the weapons to fight WWII, a group of civil rights activists led by A. Philip Randolph, head of the union for black male porters, men who worked as sleeping car attendants on America’s railroads. Mr. Randolph and others formed the “March on Washington Movement.” They demanded that President Roosevelt end racial discrimination in hiring for the defense industry and threatened a massive march on Washington, D.C., to protest racial segregation in employment and in the military. Randolph is credited with forcing FDR to issue Executive Order 8802 which prohibited racial discrimination in hiring for national defense industries and established the Fair Employment Practices Commission (FEPC). While Executive Order 8802 didn’t end discrimination against African Americans in defense industries, it did lead to some job gains for black workers.

In 1943, employment applications began arriving at Langley from black women. For example, Dorothy Vaughan, one of the three main characters in the film, came to NASA when she saw a federal civil service bulletin intended to recruit white women. Even though there was still discrimination against “Negroes,” the relentless Mr. Butler began hiring well-qualified black women to work as human computers. He got around the scandalous implications of racial equality by setting up a segregated work area for the smaller number of “colored” computers. It was called West Computing because it was located in a building at Langley’s western end. White females worked at East Computing. Shetterly, p. 8.

Propelled by the Civil Rights Movement, opportunities for blacks to work in the aeronautics and space industries opened up a little more during the 1950s and 1960s. Spurred by Soviet Russia’s Sputnik, the first man-made object to orbit the earth, the U. S. recognized the need to provide technical and scientific training to students and to move them into positions that could benefit America’s reach for the heavens. The administration of President Dwight D. Eisenhower responded by increasing the resources that went into scientific research and training. Additionally, U. S. leaders were engaged in selling the American way of life to non-aligned nations during the Cold War. They worried that Jim Crow segregation and the second-class citizen status of American “Negroes” would not play well in the court of international opinion. Shetterly, p. 104.

Jim Crow Laws and Customs

In the American South after the Civil War and Reconstruction, the white power structure (formerly the slave-owning class) reasserted itself and imposed a racist system through “Jim Crow” laws and customs. These were designed to denigrate and suppress African Americans. One of the pillars of Jim Crow was separate sanitary facilities. Restrooms and drinking fountains were designated “White Only” or “Colored.” There were many fewer restrooms and drinking fountains for blacks than there were for whites. Every day in cities, towns, and villages across the South, African Americans faced personal emergencies when the only restroom available — for what could quickly become an urgent need — was forbidden territory. A black person in that situation had to find some alternative or run the substantial risk of arrest or a beating for using a “White Only” restroom. This disgraceful practice is treated semi-humorously in the film — cinematically, there was no other way to present it. However, the unavailability of restrooms was no laughing matter for African Americans who had to live under Jim Crow.

(The white husband of this writer was once detained, at age 15, by police for defacing a “White Only” sign on a laundromat in Tallahassee, Florida. It was Halloween night in 1963. Hard at work on his task, he heard a sound behind him, looked over his shoulder, and saw a police cruiser come to a stop. He was released after a few hours on the condition that he clean up the sign. An African-American teenager would probably not have been treated in such a lenient fashion.)

Ms. Shetterly’s book describes the proliferation of black middle-class neighborhoods around the Langley campus in the middle of the 20th Century. Despite economic and professional gains by African Americans since that time, segregation in housing hasn’t changed much.

… Brown University’s US2010 Project [has shown that] in 1940, the average black lived in a neighborhood that was 40 percent white. In 1950 it fell to 35 percent — where it remains today. This average, of course, aggregates data from many neighborhoods where blacks have virtually no exposure to whites, and others where integration is advanced. Nonetheless, by this measure there has been no progress in reducing segregation [in housing] for the last 60 years. Commentary by Richard Rothstein for the Economic Policy Institute, February 3, 2012, accessed on January 9, 2022.

The Impact of the Black Press and the “Double V” Campaign

African-American newspapers, journals, and magazines of the 1940s and 1950s were inspiring and influential in the segregated lives of America’s black citizens. They contributed to initiatives to integrate society and achieve economic and social justice. In WWII these publications promoted the “Double V Campaign:” Victory overseas in the war and victory over discrimination at home. This campaign intentionally echoed the concept of the double consciousness of blacks in a racist society, articulated by the African-American intellectual W. E. B. Du Bois, and analyzed in his signature book, The Souls of Black Folk . Dubois wrote that blacks faced a nearly impossible task in constructing internally positive personal identities because they were forced to act in ways that were acceptable to an oppressive white society. To do this they had to see themselves through its eyes: devalued and negatively stereotyped. Shetterly, p. 33. This psychological conundrum confronts every oppressed group.

Euler’s Method

Euler’s Method, employed by Katherine Johnson in her breakthrough calculations for John Glenn’s Friendship Seven orbit, was devised in the 18th century. The idea behind Euler’s Method is to approximate a curve using the concept of local linearity to join multiple small line segments of the curve. Mathscoop.com. The method was one of many mathematical innovations developed by Leonhard Euler of Switzerland, one of the great mathematicians of his time. Euler lived from 1707 to 1783, dying just seven years after the U.S. declared independence from Great Britain.

USING THE MOVIE IN THE CLASSROOM

Unless the class has already studied American history of the 20th century, set the scene before for showing the film with direct instruction covering the following points:

This movie takes place during the Cold War with the Soviet Union, 1947 – 1991. From the end of WWII until 1957 most Americans thought the U.S. was the technological leader of the world. Then, on October 4, 1957, the Russians launched Sputnik, the first man-made object to orbit the earth. Sputnik was followed by additional Russian successes in space: the first animal in orbit (1957, the dog Laika); the first animals and plants returned alive from space (1961); the first human in orbit (1961) etc. From 1957 to 1961 the Russians led the space race as the early U.S. space program was plagued by failures. People all over the world looked up at the sky and wondered at the Russian achievement. Americans of all races, classes, and backgrounds were united in their desire for the United States to put a man into orbit and bring him home safely, as soon as possible.

At the same time, in the late 1950s and early 1960s, the Civil Rights movement was gathering force. However, most of the Southern U.S., including Virginia, was still in the grip of laws and customs designed to denigrate and oppress African Americans. These were referred to as “Jim Crow.” In addition, black people and women of all races suffered from discrimination in employment.

In the early 1960s, electronic computers were in their infancy. The people designing airplanes and rockets used analog adding machines. An ingenious analog device called a slide rule assisted engineers and scientists with multiplication, division, and finding exponents, roots, and logarithms.

After Watching the Movie

Tell the class that the movie, “Hidden Figures,” does not claim to describe the full effects of racism or the broad scope of the Civil Rights movement. It shows an episode in the ongoing process of eliminating discrimination against blacks and women in employment in the U.S.

After watching the film, students will be interested in reading the Helpful Background section. Click here for a version in Microsoft Word, suitable to be printed and distributed to the class. Teachers should feel free to modify or add to the handout as may be appropriate for their classes.

What is Real, What is Dramatic License, and a Few Interesting Anecdotes

Katherine Johnson estimates that the film is 75% accurate. My Remarkable Journey, p. 7. The author of the book, Hidden Figures , Margot Shetterly, estimates that she has identified almost 50 black women who were working at Langley as computers, mathematicians, engineers, and researchers. She surmises that about “70 more can be shaken loose.” Approximately 400 white women were working in the same capacity.

Katherine Johnson and Mary Jackson worked for Dorothy Vaughan in West Computing, but the three were not close friends.

The character of Al Harrison, Katherine Johnson’s boss at the Space Task Group, is a composite. NASA says he is largely based on Robert C. Gilruth, who became the director of the Space Task Group in 1958. Shetterly nominates engineer John Stack as the model for Harrison.

Fly-by-wire navigation (FBW), in which the trajectory of the flight is controlled by computer and not by the pilot, began with the Mercury mission. In 1962 FBW wasn’t as reliable as it is today. The early astronauts, who were all former test pilots, hated FBW and lobbied hard for back-up manual controls. As they said, they didn’t want to be “spam in a can.” In fact, the manual controls saved the life of at least one astronaut. For a description of the struggle between the astronauts and the engineers over FBW. See Learning Guide to The Right Stuff .

John Glenn really did request that Katherine Johnson double check the computer calculations. Glenn said, “. . . [G]et the girl. . . . If she says the numbers are good, then I’m ready to go.” NASA Biography of Catherine Johnson, accessed April 22, 2017 . Ms. Johnson did the computations in the days leading up to the launch, not when Glenn was about to climb into the spacecraft and blast off. My Remarkable Journey, pp. 160 & 161.

The characters who exhibit the most adherence to Jim Crow attitudes, the initially hostile police officer, the condescending white engineer in the Space Task Group, Paul Stafford, and Mrs. Mitchell, the white supervisor, all change their behavior. The policeman escorts the three protagonists to work. Mrs. Mitchell indicates her growing respect for Dorothy by addressing her as “Mrs. Vaughan” at the film’s end. And Paul Stafford reverses his resistance to Katherine’s presence and status, bringing her a cup of coffee. Coffee serves as a symbol for acceptance onto the NASA team.

Mrs. Mitchell’s real-life counterpart was Margery Hannah, who behaved differently than the character in the film. She “went out of her way to treat the West Area women as equals, and had even invited some of them to work-related social affairs at her apartment.” Shetterly p. 47.

It was actually Mary Jackson who lost her cool about the segregated bathrooms. Dorothy Vaughan had sent her on a special assignment to East Computing. Mary “blew her top” to wind tunnel engineer Kazimierz “Kaz” Czarnecki (Karl Zielinski in the movie) about the egregious situation. He listened, then invited her to come work for him. He became her mentor, and she eventually organized his retirement party. Shetterly, p. 254. Katherine Johnson did not have experiences of having to walk long distances to find a “Colored Women” bathroom, but other “colored computers” did. My Remarkable Journey, p. 7. The filmmakers scripted the scenes of Katherine Johnson racing across the campus and her (Mary Jackson’s) explosion to demonstrate what other black women had to endure.

The seating at the cafeteria at Langley was segregated. A West Computer named Miriam Mann found the “Colored Computers” table sign to be especially loathsome. She would periodically remove it, and it would reappear on the table some days later. Eventually, it wasn’t replaced. Shetterly, p. 44. This could have been the inspiration for Katherine’s humiliating coffee pot encounters which she does not recount in her memoir.

Dorothy’s visit to the segregated library with her children depicts another obstacle to equality in the Jim Crow South. Separate and unequal schools were not the only barriers to learning and advancement that confronted African Americans. The photo below tells it all.

In her personalized trailer for “Hidden Figures,” actress Octavia Spencer (“Dorothy Vaughan”) regrets that the number of women in math and computing has recently declined: “….[W]omen today hold only about a quarter of U.S. computing and mathematical jobs – a fraction that has actually fallen slightly over the past 15 years, even as women have made big strides in other fields.” Why Is Silicon Valley So Awful to Women? by Liza Mundy, The Atlantic, April 2017.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

1. Who or what is the antagonist in this story? What defeats the antagonist? Explain whether or not you believe that this shows a process that works in reality.

Suggested Response:

Racism (or “Jim Crow”) is the antagonist. This is what the heroines must overcome. The whites who show racist tendencies change by the end of the film when they come to understand that their African-American coworkers are valuable parts of the team. Racism is defeated by the need to get into space and by the courage of the “Colored” computers in challenging barriers to try to help the NASA team. This displays a process that has worked and continues to work at NASA, in the U.S. military, in business, in sports, and in many other areas. People working together for a common goal can lead to the end of prejudice. The question that whites in this film must answer is whether their racial prejudice is more important to them than getting a man into orbit. An example of team spirit triumphing over racial prejudice in sports is described in the movie Remember the Titans .

2. What or who are the “Hidden Figures” referred to in the title to this movie?

Shetterly cites two possibilities in her book Hidden Figures : One is the women, and especially the black women, whose contributions to America’s space effort went largely unrecognized until the movie was released. Another possibility is that the “Hidden Figures” are the mathematical figures that had to be uncovered in calculating trajectories and orbits for the astronauts.

3. Does this movie paint an accurate picture of racism in the Southern United States under Jim Crow? [or] What are some of the things about racism in the Southern U.S. under Jim Crow that this movie doesn’t show?

It’s not that the film is inaccurate, it’s simply that the story of the three black ladies who found jobs at NASA doesn’t lend itself to showing most of the terrible things that racists in the Southern U.S. did to black people: the daily humiliation, the beatings, the lynchings, etc. The movie doesn’t tell the story of the millions of people denied education and jobs because of the color of their skin.

4. What role does the scene with the policeman and the three protagonists play in the story? What does this tell you about the position of the black women in Virginia society in the late 1950s?

This scene foreshadows what happens in the film in terms of the attitude of many whites at NASA toward the black women with whom they work. It also serves as a reminder of the ever-present threat of force against black Americans inherent in Jim Crow, which continues to a lesser extent to this day.

5. [This question should be preceded by Question #1.] One view of human relations is that in our lives we are associated with different groups, called “tribes” in this formulation. There are involuntary tribes that we are born into, like families, clans, and countries. Then there are the tribes of affiliation which we join out of interest and belief. For example, Katherine Johnson could be said to belong to the following “tribes of affiliation:” mathematicians, the human computers, the NASA Space Task Group, mothers, church members, basket ball fans, etc. Analyze the conflict in this film in terms of this view of human relations.

Racism broke down because the voluntary “tribe” of the NASA workforce became more important than the societally assigned “tribe” of race. The concept of race and racial differences is a societal construct. To give an example, many people who are identified as African American have as many white ancestors as they do black ancestors. That means that many of their genes are, in fact, caucasian. So, why are they not classified that way?

Note: It’s a great exercise to ask students to identify the tribes to which they belong, both those assigned by tradition and society and those assumed voluntarily. Which are the most important?

6. Three characters in the film exhibit racist tendencies. Identify one of them, describe how their racism is shown, and what happens to their attitudes through the course of the film.

The characters who exhibit the most adherence to Jim Crow attitudes are the police officer shown at the beginning of the movie; Mrs. Mitchell, the Female Computers’ white supervisor, and Paul Stafford, the condescending white engineer in the Space Task Group. By the end of the film, each changes their attitudes: the policeman escorts the three protagonists to work; Mrs. Mitchell indicates her growing respect for Dorothy by addressing her as “Mrs. Vaughan,” and Paul Stafford reverses his resistance to Katherine’s presence and status, bringing her a cup of coffee.

7. Coffee serves as a symbol in this movie. What does it symbolize?

Professional respect and acceptance as a member of the NASA team.

8. What is the role of the romance between Katherine Johnson and the Army officer that she married in the story?

It shows that feminism is not just work related and that a man with the strength of character can appreciate and love a strong woman if he abandons stereotyped ways of viewing women. It is also an accurate portrayal of Mrs. Johnson’s second marriage and her second husband, Colonel Jim Johnson. My Remarkable Journey, pp. 140, 141, 207, 214 – 216.

HUMAN RIGHTS

See Discussion Questions numbered 1, 3, 4, 5, and 6.

1. Describe three acts of courage by the heroines in the film. Why are these actions particularly courageous?

There are several possibilities: Dorothy Vaughan: repeatedly asking to be promoted to the position of supervisor and walking into the computer room to work with the new machine; Katherine Johnson: entering the Space Task Group; and Mary Jackson: bringing her case to court and speaking up to the judge. These actions were particularly courageous because they required challenging the color bar, something that had been enforced in the South for four centuries through intimidation and violence. (For an example, see the picture above of the police forcibly removing a black woman from a library.)

MORAL-ETHICAL EMPHASIS (CHARACTER COUNTS)

(Treat others with respect; follow the Golden Rule; Be tolerant of differences; Use good manners, not bad language; Be considerate of the feelings of others; Don’t threaten, hit or hurt anyone; Deal peacefully with anger, insults, and disagreements)

1. What is the basic moral failing of racism?

There are many valid responses. Examples include racists do not treat others with respect; they do not follow the Golden Rule, and they are not tolerant of differences.

ASSIGNMENTS, PROJECTS & ACTIVITIES

Each of the discussion questions can serve as quick write or essay prompts.

1. The following are research topics for essays by students. Length of essay and extent of research depend upon the capabilities of the class.

Describe the origin and history of Jim Crow.
Define the terms”de facto” and “de jure” and describe how they relate to Jim Crow.
Compare and contrast racial discrimination in the North and in the South during the period 1950 – 1965. Use at least three sets of comparisons. Provide citations to newspaper articles, books, or pages on the Internet that show the particular incidents.
Describe the changes in American attitudes towards race and racism (both North and South) from before Brown v. Board of Education and the Montgomery Bus Boycott (1954) to Selma and the passage of the Voting Rights Act (1964).
For students who live in the Southeastern United States, describe the history of Jim Crow laws or customs in your state/city.

[There is no correct answer to the the questions posed by the next two essay prompts. Students should be informed that any response that (a) is based on core Western values, as expressed in the Declaration of Independence, (2) comports with the Golden Rule, and (3) uses logical analysis, will be acceptable.]

2. Write an essay evaluating whether the U.S. should pay reparations to its African-American citizens in light of the following:

National Book Award winner Ta-Nehisi Coates has written that the practice of “redlining,” or denying mortgage and financial services to blacks, has prevented the intergenerational transfer of wealth in families that is a mainstay of middle-class financial security in the U.S. The Case for Reparations — Two hundred fifty years of slavery. Ninety years of Jim Crow. Sixty years of separate but equal.Thirty-five years of racist housing policy. Until we reckon with our compounding moral debts, America will never be whole by Ta-Nehisi Coates, The Atlantic, June 2014 Issue .

3. Some people feel that ethnic or racially segregated neighborhoods afford groups of people a sense of belonging and an opportunity to “be themselves” and feel at home. Others believe that racially segregated neighborhoods are not only illegal but un-American. Write an essay answering the following question, “When do neighborhoods that are divided along racial or ethnic lines become ghettos?”

4. Research and present information on the STEM or STEAM program at your school. Describe any outreach efforts to enroll students of color or girls in these programs.

5. Research and present information on courses of study in engineering, computer programming, mathematics, or robotics at three of your top choice colleges/universities.

6. Write a persuasive job notice intended to recruit female students and students of color to the fields of math, computing, and sciences.

7. Conduct interviews (in person or via video conference) with math/science/engineering professionals of color/female professors about their career paths and the obstacles they have had to overcome.

CCSS ANCHOR STANDARDS

Multimedia:

Anchor Standard #7 for Reading (for both ELA classes and for History/Social Studies, Science, and Technical Classes). (The three Anchor Standards read: “Integrate and evaluate content presented in diverse media, including visually and quantitatively as well as in words.”) CCSS pp. 35 & 60. See also Anchor Standard # 2 for ELA Speaking and Listening, CCSS pg. 48.

Anchor Standards #s 1, 2, 7 and 8 for Reading and related standards (for both ELA classes and for History/Social Studies, Science, and Technical Classes). CCSS pp. 35 & 60.

Anchor Standards #s 1 – 5 and 7- 10 for Writing and related standards (for both ELA classes and for History/Social Studies, Science, and Technical Classes). CCSS pp. 41 & 63.

Speaking and Listening:

Anchor Standards #s 1 – 3 (for ELA classes). CCSS pg. 48.

Not all assignments reach all Anchor Standards. Teachers are encouraged to review the specific standards to make sure that over the term all standards are met.

LINKS TO THE INTERNET

‘Hidden Figures’: ‘The Right Stuff’ vs. Real Stuff in New Film About NASA History by Robert Z. Pearlman, collectSPACE.com Editor; 12/27/16;
The True Story of “Hidden Figures,” the Forgotten Women Who Helped Win the Space Race By Maya Wei-Haas smithsonian.com
The Human Computer Project ;
NASA Article on Katherine Johnson ;
NASA Biography for Mary Jackson ;
NASA Biography for Katherine Johnson ;
NASA Biography for Dorothy Vaughan ;
FDR, A. Philip Randolph and the Desegregation of the Defense Industries A lesson plan from the White House Historical Association;
1941 – Plans for a March on Washington form the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library; and
Article on Johann Euler from the History of Mathematics web site.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

In addition to websites which may be linked in the Guide and selected film reviews listed on the Movie Review Query Engine , the following resources were consulted in the preparation of this Learning Guide:

Shetterly, Margot Lee, Hidden Figures , New York, William Morrow, 2016; and
Johnson, Katherine with Joyce Hylick and Katherine Moore, My Remarkable Journey, A Memoire, Amistad, 2021.

This Learning Guide was written by Deborah Elliott and was published on May 9, 2017. It was revised with the assistance of James A. Frieden and republished on January 10, 2022.

LEARNING GUIDE MENU:

Benefits of the Movie Possible Problems Parenting Points Selected Awards & Cast Helpful Background Using the Movie in the Classroom Discussion Questions Social-Emotional Learning Moral-Ethical Emphasis Assignments and Projects CCSS Anchor Standards Links to the Internet Bibliography

MOVIE WORKSHEETS:

RANDALL KENNEDY, Professor, Harvard Law School on the two alternative traditions relating to racism in America:

“I say that the best way to address this issue is to address it forthrightly, and straightforwardly, and embrace the complicated history and the complicated presence of America. On the one hand, that’s right, slavery, and segregation, and racism, and white supremacy is deeply entrenched in America. At the same time, there has been a tremendous alternative tradition, a tradition against slavery, a tradition against segregation, a tradition against racism.

I mean, after all in the past 25 years, the United States of America has seen an African-American presence. As we speak, there is an African-American vice president. As we speak, there’s an African- American who is in charge of the Department of Defense. So we have a complicated situation. And I think the best way of addressing our race question is to just be straightforward, and be clear, and embrace the tensions, the contradictions, the complexities of race in American life. I think we need actually a new vocabulary.

So many of the terms we use, we use these terms over and over, starting with racism, structural racism, critical race theory. These words actually have been weaponized. They are vehicles for propaganda. I think we would be better off if we were more concrete, we talked about real problems, and we actually used a language that got us away from these overused terms that actually don’t mean that much. From Fahreed Zakaria, Global Public Square, CNN, December 26, 2021

Give your students new perspectives on race relations, on the history of the American Revolution, and on the contribution of the Founding Fathers to the cause of representative democracy. Check out TWM’s Guide: TWO CONTRASTING TRADITIONS RELATING TO RACISM IN AMERICA and a Tragic Irony of the American Revolution: the Sacrifice of Freedom for the African-American Slaves on the Altar of Representative Democracy.

QUICK FACT:

Today’s, cell phones have more computing power than entire rooms of the digital computers of the 1950s and 1960s.

The increases in funding for the sciences that followed Russia’s launch of Sputnik in 1957 were felt in many areas of science. This writer’s father-in-law was a poorly paid professor of biochemistry in the early 1950s. After Sputnik in 1957, his pay and status “skyrocketed” along with those of other scientists in academia.

Have your students read 1.5 pages on what Katherine Johnson wrote about her family’s commitment to education and their personal response to the Dred Scott decision of 1857. Click here for the reading in Word format.

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Critique of “Hidden Figures” Movie Essay (Movie Review)

The focus of this paper is a drama film Hidden Figures . Released in 2016, the movie was directed by Theodore Melfi. The script was provided by Melfi himself in cooperation with Allison Schroeder. The main character of Hidden Figures is mathematician Katherine Goble Johnson played by Taraji P. Henson. She works with Dorothy Vaughan played by Octavia Spencer and Mary Kackson played by Janelle Monáe. Paul Stafford played by Lim Parsons is the closest the movie has to an antagonist. Kevin Costner plays Al Harrison who is the head of the Space Task Group where Katherine is transferred. Glen Powell portrays John Glenn whose space flight provides the context to the movie. The main theme of the movie is that the motivation to achieve results can overcome discrimination and benefit society.

Hidden Figures is both a biographical movie and a drama film. The movie revolves around three African American women who directly participate and are responsible for the successful launch of NASA astronaut John Glenn into orbit. The film is set in 1961, when segregation of women and African Americans in particular was still prevalent. Most characters in the movie are based on real people. Subsequently, Hidden Figures intertwines two genres – biography and drama, with a heavier emphasis on the drama element. Although history underscores the setting, the movie is about discrimination (Ikawati, 2018). It is evident in that the scenes the drive the plot showcase women managing their tasks despite segregation. Although the film revolves around historic representation of discrimination, some researchers believe that it also promoted feminist agenda (Ikhsano & Jakarudi, 2020). Even if this was not Melfi’s intention, the movie definitely showcases women in a positive light.

The film opens up with Katherine Goble Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan, and Mary Jackson driving for work. The women work as mathematicians at the Langley Research Center, which is segregated on the racial and gender basis. Katherine is assigned to the Space Task Group – an all-white engineer team that requires a mathematician to assist the group with developing the flight paths for rockets. However, the head engineer Paul Stafford expresses animosity towards Katherine in large part due to the instruction given to her by the director of the Space Task Group to check Stafford’s calculations. Despite having been transferred to another building, Katherine faces numerous expressions of segregation, one which is the prohibition to use local restrooms.

Despite the obstacles, Katherine succeeds in her work and impresses Harrison. At one point, Harrison criticizes Katherine for long absences during work. However, once he found out that the reason for them is her inability to use local restrooms, he makes toilets available for all employees indiscriminately. In the meantime, work pressure increases due to concerns that the US is losing the space race. Katherine manages to impress austronaut John Glenn, who begins to trust her calculations exclusively.

After Katherine uses the numerical Eulerian method to calculate the coordinates for re-entry into the atmosphere, it becomes known that IBM computer is installed that renders Katherine’s position obsolete. However, during the preparation of the flight, the computer delivers contradictory numbers. It forces Glenn to request that Katherine check the calculations. Katherine proceeds to assist Harrison with calculating Glenn’s trajectory, thus making the flight successful. The epilogue reveals that computers did replace human mathematician, but the women managed to progress further in their careers.

Ikhsano, A., & Jakarudi, J. (2020). Representation of Black Feminism in Hidden Figures. Nyimak: Journal of Communication , 4 (2), 169-180.

Ikawati, L. (2018). Afro-American women discrimination on Hidden Figures : A critical discourse analysis. Indonesian Journal of English Language Studies (IJELS) , 4 (1), 19-30. Web.

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IvyPanda. (2023, March 17). Critique of "Hidden Figures" Movie. https://ivypanda.com/essays/critique-of-hidden-figures-movie/

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Hidden Figures Movie Review

The movie I selected to do my historical movie review on is “Hidden Figures”, directed by Theodore Melfi, and story was from Margot Lee Shetterly. The reason I chose this particular movie is because it is based on a team of women fighting for equal rights, while working for NASA, a U.S space program. This movie speaks on such critical causes, and I wanted to learn more about those causes. The group of women who fought for equality impacts us present day in many ways. One way is it shows how they fought in the earlier years, and them fighting allows us to have equality. This sets an example for us when we get the chance to stand up and fight for what we believe.

In the movie, I think I will see a team of intelligent women fighting for their rights because they are fed up with people treating them differently because their race is African American. I think I will see women prosper in their jobs because of their actions. Also, I think those who did not have respect for the women will finally at last have respect for them. I believe that by the actions of the women, it will change their employees hearts and outlook on African Americans. Lastly, I believe I will see a change in rules at the women’s jobs.

The type of movie is based on true events, and the genre is comedy, drama, and historical fiction. The main characters are Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan, and Mary Jackson. These events take place in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, 1926. In the exposition of the movie, Katherine is displayed as a child, and her parents were called in by the office of her school to speak about her transferring into a different school. This new school provided her a full scholarship and a higher education. Then Katherine, Dorothy, and Mary are shown as adults, and were on their way to work when their car broke down.

A police had stopped them and questioned them, then escorted them to their job. In the rising action, Katherine had been chosen to be the new mathematician at NASA. Katherine entered her new job, and was given an extreme amount of work that had to be done at the end of the day. The more work Katherine got done, the more she outstood to her co-workers.

In the climax, Al Harrison, Katherine’s boss questions her where does she go a couple times a day for forty minutes. Katherine replies that there is no colored bathroom for her to use in the building, so she has to walk more than a mile just to use the restroom. This causes Al Harrison to break down the racist signs from the bathrooms. In the falling action, Katherine gets married to a man that she met at a church barbecue. The following week, Al Harrison brought the news to Katherine that they did not need her anymore as the mathematician. Mary goes to court so she can receive permission to attend an all white school so she can receive another degree so she can become an engineer for NASA. Mary was granted the ability to attend night classes at the school. In the resolution, John Glenn was about to be launched off into orbit, but the landing calculations did not match up correctly. The NASA team had to get Katherine to do the calculations again. John Glenn was launched and orbited the Earth three times, and the landing numbers were exactly correctly calculated by Katherine.

The particular event that “Hidden Figures” depict is African Americans fighting for equality. They received inequalities because of the color of their skin. The society created conflicts towards them due to issues with gender, and race. The subject of the movie is negative because the African Americans did not receive equality, but the way that the movie deals with the subject is in a positive manner. The reason for this is the conflict that African Americans faced was solved at the resolution.

After viewing the movie, I learned that our culture has a habit of judging too quickly. Our culture has the instinct to judge someone based on their looks but not based on who they are. I learned that the American society can do amazing changes and make history if we unite and work together. Based on how Katherine, Mary, and Dorothy were treated I think that history might be repeating itself. I believe this because humans today in our society are being criticized for their race and religion.

The central message of the movie is do not judge someone based on their gender or race because you never know the potential they have. I believe this is the central message of the movie because Katherine was judged because she was “colored” and a woman. When Al Harrison, Katherine’s boss recognized her potential and intelligence, she was finally respected. Katherine was not just considered a colored woman, she was more than that to her boss now. The movie was very effective in conveying the central message because in the exposition Mary, Dorothy, and Katherine were criticized based on their looks, but as the film goes on, their intelligence stands out to the rest of the employees at NASA.

A few questions that were unanswered in the movie were “What was the support system that gave Dorothy, Katherine, and Mary the confidence to fight for equality that had been caused by the society?” and “Why did the American society have something against the one race: African Americans?”. I think that the movie not answering these questions was done on purpose because they wanted the audience to analyze and think about the questions. The information that I gained about American culture, history, and society that may not be conveyed by a written source is how much African Americans were discriminated. I would not be able to gain this information from a written source because it would be challenging for me to visualize it. Since it was conveyed through a movie, I was able to see discrimination occurring and I was able to visualize it occurring in history.

I do believe that the film encouraged me to know more about the subject of the movie because I was aware of how African Americans were treated, but I did not know as much in detail. The film provided examples of African Americans being treated unfairly and I was not aware of them. For instance, when Katherine was chosen to be the new mathematician, she asked an employee where the ladies room was, she replied that she did not know where their bathroom was. “Their” meaning the colored bathroom. This meant for Katherine to use the restroom, she had to walk more than a mile to the colored bathroom. Another example is when Dorothy went to the library with her two kids. While she was browsing, a librarian came up to her saying that she did not want any trouble. Dorothy then replied stating that she did not come there to cause any trouble. The librarian then asked why she was not in the colored section of the library. Dorothy was not in the colored section because they did not have what she needed. This caused the security guard kick them out the library.

I would recommend this film because it is based on true events that speak about an inequality that was a conflict and then was solved. These events are one of the reasons why African Americans do not have to use separate facilities. It makes who we are today. Watching this movie, will give a sense of appreciation to all of those who battled for equality. If this movie was viewed by someone with little or no knowledge of American history or culture, I believe that this movie will affect their view of American society and culture by them recognizing that because of the battle that was fought by African Americans we have gained equal rights. They will see what occurred years ago, and how that impacts our culture today. They will realize that if you have a goal and the society is creating conflicts because of your gender or race, you can fight for equality and accomplish your goal. Accomplishing your goal may create a change in the society and culture.

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supremestudy.com. (2021). Hidden Figures Movie Review . [Online]. Available at: https://supremestudy.com/hidden-figures-movie-review/ [Accessed: 16 May. 2024]

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supremestudy.com. (2021). Hidden Figures Movie Review . [Online]. Available at: https://supremestudy.com/hidden-figures-movie-review/ [Accessed: 16-May-2024]

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Hidden Figures: a Reflection on the Movie

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