Analysis Of The Movie Hidden Figures

Most people don’t know the backstory of one of the first African American women to help the first space launch. Katherine Johnson was one of them. They were called computers because they were African American. She affected the greatest history event of all time.It is a pleasure for me to tell you about the impact Katherine Johnson made in our lives till this day.

Hidden Figures is a film based on a remarkable true story about three colored women in the 1960s. The movie follows the lives of Dorothy Vaughn, Mary Jackson, and Kathrine Johnson. These women used their intellect at NASA to contribute to the launch of the first American into space. Hidden Figures also represents the contribution of these women to society. They helped put a man in space, yet they didn’t receive the proper appreciation during their time. Hidden Figures helps give those women gratitude for all that they did for NASA and the United States. Even though this film acknowledges their achievements, it recognizes the hardships the women faced while working for NASA as well as the hardships of all other African American women in the workplace. A few of the hardships they faced were sexism, discrimination, and ageism.

There was Mary and one other African American women working in the East Computers. The other lady was Dorothy Vaughan. Mary and Dorothy helped NASA by providing important information that was later used in the early days of the NASA space program.

The film ‘Hidden Figures’, directed by Theodore Melfi, follows the story of Katherine and Mary, two African American women who work at NASA, but are stopped from achieving their goals because they are ‘coloured’. Melfi uses props, dialogue and music to manipulate the audience to think that racism takes effort to resolve and that we are all human. Melfi does this to influence us to change the way we think and feel about people.

August 26, 1918 Katherine Johnson entered the world in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia. Katherine loved math at an early age and helped her siblings who were years older than she with their homework was. Katherine counted everything like her dishes to the steps she took to get to church. Katherine started high school as a freshman at age of 10 and left at 14.She began college at 15 years old and took classes to become a mathematician. She graduated college at 18. (Mathematics and French) Married James Francis Goble and had 3 daughters Joylette, Katherine and Constance. Katherine became a teacher and taught for 7 years. At the age of 34 she heard NACA (NASA) was hiring women of color to solve math problems. She applied one year and didn't get the job and she applied the next year and got it. She later on

An example of that would be during a laboratory open house, where a photo of her and the rest of her co-workers was blown up and put on display, with the exception of her face which was purposely cut out of the picture. She was very embarrassed about it but she didn't let it affect her. In an interview with NASA she said “When people have their biases and prejudices, yes, I am aware. My head is not in the sand. But my thing is, if I can't work with you, I will work around you. I was not about to be discouraged that I'd walk away. That may be a solution for some people, but it's not mine”. Another obstacle she faced was her inability to get a good education as others because of her skin colour. Back at her time, there was a lot of discrimination.which resulted in a separation of schools for black and white people. The schools with black kids typically had a worse education. She was also unable to continue her study as a pharmacist because she got married and had to move. Though all of that happened to her It didn't stop her from becoming a great computer programmer, mathematician, and a rocket scientist for NASA who helped make modern spaceflight possible with her calculations. Everything she has done and all the obstacles she has faced are reasons that make her a very notable

Have you ever heard of Rosa Parks or Ruby Bridges?Well these women are extra special.Rosa got arrested from not giving her seat up and Ruby was incredible and didn’t get scared when she was the only black girl in a whole white school and was getting yelled at by angry mobs.

of not only African Americans, but females too. She showed that women were just as talented as

1960 during a racial time in the United States, three African-American women changed the way women work forever. Christine Darden had a lot of accomplishments with her career but two of her accomplishments were more important to her than others. Christine Darden, Katherine Johnson, and Dorothy Vaughn were three women who joined the NASA association during the 1960’s.

“There is a fascination with the idea that one has 'seen someone else do something' before one can achieve it. Maybe that's true in some cases, but clearly it is not a requirement. I knew what I wanted to do.”-Mae C. Jemison. When the space shuttle Endeavour blasted off on it’s second mission on September 12, 1992, it carried the first African-American women into space. Mae C. Jemison was not only an astronaut, she’s also a physician, a Peace Corps volunteer, a teacher, and a founder and president of two technology companies.

Society continues to nurture these depriving situations and demonstrate lack of concern towards black women by not celebrating them for the roles they played in the movements. Taylor (1998) asserted that, “despite the fact that the most celebrated leaders of the modern civil rights movements were men, African American women participated at every stage in the struggle for justice and equality” (239). Although black women were not in public eyes during these movements, it was their vision and organizing roles they played that helped in the progression of many liberation movements.

This movie is amazing and inspirational to other young black women, it shows that you many struggle but if you keep going your dreams and hard work will be recognize. This film touch on the gender norms and racial norms, which has strong connection to the four reading I choice to critical review this blog. This movie has strong connection to the Gaga Feminism theory, the concept is “a set of wholesale changes that may be most obvious in the realm of gender norms but that also stretch too many other realms of everyday experience and that call for improvisational feminism that keeps pace with the winds of political change.” Hidden-figures proved that Black women can do whatever they want if they put their mind to it. This is breaking down what society has deem as the normal way of doing this.

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

The movie Hidden Figures is about 3 African American women who work for NASA during the 1950’s.The three women are Katherine Johnson,Dorothy Vaughn,and Mary Jackson.Katherine Johnson had a hidden talent that most of the people that worked at NASA didn't know she had , she was a master with the numbers.Dorothy was the manager of NASA's segregated West Area Computing Unit and she was also good with the numbers,just not as good as Katherine.Mary Jackson was an American mathematician and aerospace engineer that worked at NASA,along with the other three girls.Many African American women worked for NASA they just don't receive much recognition but these three women seem to have changed the game for everyone.

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