Why ‘Hidden Figures’ Is the Movie We Need Right Now
If you think Hidden Figures is just a movie about a group of black women doing mathematical equations on giant chalkboards to send men into outer space, you’re wrong.
The film is adapted from Margot Lee Shetterley’s book, Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win The Space Race, and stars actresses Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spencer, and Janelle Monáe. Based on a true story, it introduces us to Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan, and Mary Jackson, three black women who were part of NASA’s team of human “computers” working at Langley Field in 1960s Virginia. Each of the women played a pivotal role in some of NASA’s biggest assignments, such as America’s first human spaceflight and sending astronaut John Glenn around the Earth.
Johnson, Vaughan, and Jackson all worked together in the “colored only” section of Langley Field and were each subject to blatant acts of sexism and racism at work. However, despite these circumstances, each pushed through to prevail and meet their goals, both personal and professional. It’s an important story for a number of reasons, and comes at a time when, more than ever, people are looking to Hollywood to tell stories that represent them. For many, Hidden Figures is that movie — and it’s important that everyone see these women in action. Here’s why.
Courtesy of Giphy1/5This movie tells a story that you’ve likely never heard of.
Though the female mathematicians at NASA were pivotal in the quest to put a man into space, their story isn’t one that’s been told often. It seems, instead, that they’ve been all but erased from history, and that needs to change.
Katherine Johnson, played by Taraji, was the only black woman on a team of white men whose job was to map the exact path Freedom 7 would need to take from liftoff to splashdown. Janelle’s character, Mary Jackson, petitioned the city of Hampton, Virginia, in order to take graduate courses at the then-segregated Hampton High School so that she could become NASA’s first black female engineer. Dorothy Vaughan, played by Octavia, became NASA’s first black female supervisor.
But more than characters, these women were real — and their impact was lasting and powerful. Jackson was honored by President Obama with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2015; she, Mary, and Dorothy helped pave the way for working women – and especially women of color — everywhere. The fact that their contribution was not widely celebrated until now is a huge mark of erasure; by telling their story, we’re honoring their legacy and remembering how far we still need to go for equality in STEM fields.
2/5The film gives a jarring perspective on what it was like to live and work in the racist South during the 1960s.
Aside from all of the intel about NASA and the arduous, exacting work it takes to successfully send a man into outer space, Hidden Figures also touches on another important period in American history: segregation.
Even though they did the same calculations as many of their white, male co-workers, the female mathematicians relegated to the “colored computers” room received less pay and were expected to work in the west section of Langley’s segregated campus, which was far from NASA’s working hub. They were required to use separate dining and bathrooms and, despite having receiving the same education as their white co-workers, they were also required to retake college courses they’d already passed and often looked over for promotions or other jobs there on campus.
Watching the women navigate through the (somewhat perilous) atmosphere of the racist South is heartbreaking. In one scene, Dorothy is denied the simple right to even check out a book that she needs for work from the public library. In another scene, Katherine has to run almost a mile each time she needs to use the restroom because black people aren’t allowed to use the bathroom in the part of campus that her assignment is on.
Yes, our generation most certainly has its issues, but it is hard to imagine living in an era where racist Jim Crow laws rule the land. Imagine being told that you can’t use the bathroom somewhere or sit wherever you want while taking public transportation. Imagine being denied educational opportunities simply because your skin is dark. This was the tumultuous reality each of these women dealt with on a daily basis and, while sometimes jarring to watch, it wasn’t that long ago. We’ve come a long way, but run the risk of slipping if we forget exactly how far we’ve come.
Courtesy of Giphy3/5Hidden Figures is a perfect example of what can happen when women pull each other up, instead of down.
In the film, Dorothy plays the role of supervisor for the staff of “Colored Computers.” During this time, we see the introduction of the IBM, one of the first electronic computers on the campus. Everyone is excited about the new machine that is advertised as able to do millions of complex calculations a second — and takes up an entire room — but no one can figure out how to get it working. Dorothy not only figures out the programming for it to work, but also trains her staff of all black women so that they know how to operate the machine, too. By doing so, she ensures that each of the women will have jobs once more computers are brought to the campus. She also trains a group of white women on how to use the machine — something she shouldn’t have been expected to do considering the rampant racism on the campus, but she did it anyway.
Women helping other women is certainly nothing new; however, seeing it in this film is was quite an uplifting thing to watch. Katherine, Dorothy, and Mary aren’t just coworkers — they’re friends, and push each other to grow in their own lives as much as they push each other at work. Their friendship is shine theory in action, and serves as an important reminder that there is so much more you can accomplish if you’re all in this together.
Courtesy of Giphy4/5It’s important to see black women in STEM roles.
Raise your hand if you’ve ever heard that science and math were “boy’s subjects.” Yeah, us too. Of course, that’s factually inaccurate, but thanks to a mix of stereotype and gender roles, fewer women than men work in STEM fields; of those women it’s even more rare to see black women who are given the tools they need to excel.
That’s because STEM (or Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) are historically not fields black women are highly encouraged to enter. According to the National Science Foundation, 828,000 black women were employed in science and engineering as compared to 7,641,000 white women. In fact, Taraji recently told The View she was upset after first reading the Hidden Figures script.
“As a little girl, I was always told ‘Oh, don’t worry about math and science. That’s for boys,’” she said. But she pointed out that “Women are scientifically and mathematically wired and had very important positions in history. That’s a dream I did not know belonged to me. Who knows? I could’ve been a rocket scientist.”
It’s an amazing thing to watch these black women own their intelligence and complete the complicated looking mathematical equations (something none of the men in the film could do!) that would send the first man out to safely orbit the Earth. These women are the perfect role models that black girls need to see. Hopefully, black girls watching this film will envision themselves in these roles and more STEM jobs will be filled by women of color.
Courtesy of Giphy5/5The entire film is 100% pure, unadulterated Black Girl Magic.
And this is clearly something that Hollywood desperately needs more of right now (remember #OscarsSoWhite?)
According to a recent study conducted by the University of Southern California, only 3.4 percent of film directors in Hollywood are female and only 7 percent of films had a cast whose balance of race and ethnicity reflected the country’s diversity.
One of the study’s authors, Stacy L. Smith, posited that “we’re seeing, across the landscape, an erasure of certain groups; women, people of color, the LGBTQ community…this is really [an] epidemic of invisibility that points to a lack of inclusivity across [film and TV].”
Despite these odds and the film’s relatively slim $25 million budget, Hidden Figures has already shattered box office records and is currently in the No. 1 spot (beating out Rogue One: A Star Wars Story) at the North American box office, with $22.8 million at 2,471 sites. The fact that people are finding this surprising, however, is telling: despite the fact that audiences everywhere want to see themselves reflected on screens, analysts still undermine the success of films like this. That needs to change.
Katherine, Mary, and Dorothy helped shatter barriers during their tenure at NASA; it’s now up to people in other fields to continue the work they started, as testament to their legacy.
