The latter is a hard fought battle with Vivian Mitchell, a white supervisor, who offers to help Dorothy get a supervisory promotion, not comprehending that Dorothy is already doing the job and just wants to be paid for the work. Dorothy is the leader of the “West Computer Group” and fights for her women with the ferocity of a lioness, always thinking ahead, pushing for promotions and pay increases, including one for herself. As the women flash their NASA employee ID’s and appeal to the officer’s patriotism in beating the Soviets in the space race, his tone changes from that of confrontational to sirens blazing as he serves as a police escort to the trio.įrustrated with being relegated to a basement holding office, waiting to be given assignments, we start to learn more about each of the women, both on the job and at home.
Dorothy Vaughan is on the grounds under the car making repairs when a white police officer pulls up behind them, quizzical as to what these women are doing. We first meet our heroines (and yes, they truly are heroines) racing to get to work on time when their Chevy Impala breaks down. It makes perfect sense that math is what brings down the multiple walls of segregation within NASA. Math and science have long been a common thread among countries with different languages. The fact that it was NASA being one of the first to desegregate, in keeping with the scientific ideologies that math is the universal language and will be the connective tissue with alien species, is logical and appropriate. The fact it has taken this long to tell this story of Katherine, Dorothy and Mary is mind-boggling. Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan and Mary Jackson. HIDDEN FIGURES is the story of three of the “colored computers” who battled sexism and racism, striking a thunderous chord for equal rights within the male-dominated world of NASA and got us to the moon and beyond – Katherine G. The Space Race was on and the United States was lagging behind the Soviet Union, calling for an “all hands on deck” team effort to win the race. After World War II, African-Americans were recruited for the computer teams.Īnd as comes as no surprise in 1961, there were still “colored computers” and the “white computers”. Beginning in 1935, women were the “computers” for National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, the predecessor agency to NASA. Long before computer technology took over the world, number-crunching calculations were done by hand and, in the case of NASA, by human “computers” groups of women whose sole job was to check the mathematical calculations and trajectories of the all-male teams of engineers who were attempting to put a man in space. Both are defining films for our time and the history of this nation. This is definitely perfect timing for the release of HIDDEN FIGURES and in fact, should be a double feature with “Jackie”, as both take us back to the days of Camelot and the Kennedy administration when America aspired to reach to the moon and the stars beyond, and when a woman showed the world grace and dignity in a time of personal tragedy. Written and directed by Theodore Melfi and co-written by Allison Schroeder, Melfi, based on the book by Margot Lee Shetterly, HIDDEN FIGURES is a “must see” film for every American.
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