In-class write

The Works:

Shortly put, I would call the movie Hidden Figures an inspiring history lesson with a touch of fantasy twist held within it. When it comes to movies holding historical truth to them about important figures from the past, especially when it comes to the realms of math and sciences which advanced humans to modern times, viewers can expect a tale of large ego. Somehow, in movies, the concept of showing brilliant minds - men of genius whether in science or math - they all seem somehow aloof from the world.

The film, Hidden Figures, the story doesn’t quite seem so inaccessible. It is an amazingly near accurate exact story but not one of ego. It shows struggle and willpower, but not any singular person’s story. Set in 1960s Virginia, the movie follows a trio of African American women who work for NASA through calculations - having helped in many space missions including John Glenn’s orbit around Earth. The three main women portrayed, Katherine Goble later Johnson, Mary Jackson, and Dorothy Vaughan were all amazing mathematicians and engineers despite starting their careers in

America during a time of segregation, facing discrimination both at school and work.

The main lessons one might learn from the film rotates between women's equality and race equality. As quoted by Al 'We all pee the same color', meaning to say the film is a summing up of the racial movements pushing their way through to moving forward. It accurately shows the cruel struggles that have been documented throughout history as racial discrimination now, though it was simply the norm in historical times.

Throughout the entire film, there is this harsh line of segregation constantly shown: colored sections separate from white, violent shut-down of protests, being talked down to as displayed within the story the film plays out and when researched seen in documentations of the people who lived it. The entire film portrays the harsh accuracy of American history when there was once a time of segregation based on something as silly as skin color. I enjoyed watching how the main characters dealt with this inequality and moved forward to keep advancing despite these obstacles, they continued working to push America as a whole to a far better time: the great launching of Mercury-Atlas 6, otherwise dubbed as 'Friendship 7', which in its time was a major success for America in the space race.

This idea to keep working, keep moving forward, and pushing, again and again, is very important to inspire the viewers, but the lesson of unfair segregation without any reason beyond skin color is also incredibly important. It helps to serve as a reminder for America not to backtrack in all the advancements we have made so far. Not to mention how it is inspiring for a female myself to prove I am just as equal to a male.

As for what historical aspects one would NOT learn in this film, there are not many... The producers worked hard with NASA and Katherine Johnson (the lady who lived this story) in order to make sure things were very historically accurate. There were small keypoints Al, Katherine's director in the film was a single person in the movie versus a three-person chief. Katherine in the movie had to run a long way to the bathroom in the film when it was a long walk but not a huge distance for the real Katherine.

One might have to research the actual shuttle's name "Mercury-Atlas 6", or look into the leaders and 'computers' development, and perhaps look more deeply into the IBM 7090 DPS or Data Processing System which eventually replaced human computers.

They included actual footage of the progression of failed launching up to the success, mostly, of Mercury-Atlas 6, even included the true problems that were encountered getting John Glen into space. Even most of the characters were based on key characters the real Katherine remembered working with, so there was little that one would NOT learn.

If the person who made this movie were to add another twenty minutes' worth of time without needing to worry about losing the audience’s attention, I think they might be smart to show the briefed advances of the three women the movie followed. I would have liked to see how NASA slowly merged to forget segregation and used the success of Mercury-Atlas 6 in order to launch even more successful rockets into space.

Personally, I would have liked them to add what Katherine is documented to say one of the highest honors to receive: in 2015, at age 97, President Barack Obama awarded Katherine the Presidential Medal of Freedom, America’s highest civilian honor. I think that would have been an amazing way to end the movie, with tidbits before of her other workings besides John Glen's orbit launch.

Works such as the calculations that helped synch Project Apollo’s Lunar Module with the lunar-orbiting Command and Service Module. How Katherine also worked on the Space Shuttle and the Earth Resources Technology Satellite (ERTS, later renamed Landsat) and authored or co-authored 26 research reports, which for a black woman was a very huge thing.

And after showing Katherine receiving the reward, he could have given historical peeks or documentation of Dorothy and Mary in their major successes as well.