Hidden Figures, directed by Theodore Melfi
By Melanie Polonio April 7,2021
Everyone knows about NASA and its missions, yet nobody has ever heard of the west computing group, a group of African American women who played major roles in NASAs missions. Hidden Figures is a movie about three African American women from Virginia in 1961, who worked in NASA. It is a low budget PG drama/history film that was released on January 6, 2016. Throughout the film, the problems of segregation and sexism inside of and outside of workplaces, were presented.
Theodore Melfi is an American director, producer and screen writer. He directed Hidden Figures and used humor and history to show the true story about the three women, Katherine, Dorothy and Mary, who work at NASA. To create this film, Melfi had to choose between Hidden Figures and Spiderman and he chose Hidden Figures even though he originally believed it wouldn’t make any money (Nemiroff, Perri). He decided to do it because he believed it was going to be a film that matters. When creating the film, he had to take an intense 4–5-week course with NASA and math professionals along with one of the actors in order to understand the math used in the movie because he felt that he was a “fraud” if he didn’t understand it himself (Nemiroff, Perri). All the facts in the film are spot on with what really happened in history with some added on dramatics for entertainment. He wanted people to leave with a sense of hope to show we achieved something great in the 1960s with the help of everyone, women, men, black and white (Nemiroff, Perri).
Although it was a low budget film, Melfi made sure that the scenes made you feel like it was 1961 during the Jim Crow Laws. The buildings, technology, wardrobe, accents and timeline were accurate to the time. In 1961, there was a bombing on a bus. It was “a Greyhound bus carrying Freedom Riders that arrived at the Anniston, Alabama, bus station to meet a mob of fifty men armed with pipes, chains, and bats, smashed windows, slashed tires, and dented the sides of the Riders’ bus” (Madeo). This pertains to the movie because in a scene, we can see Dorothy walk into the living room to see her husband playing the news. We then see this incident, the Freedom Writers bombing, appear on the news. This helps the film feel more real and it proves that Melfi indeed used accurate information.
The three African American women, named Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaugh and Mary Jackson, all had different talents. Katherine is a mathematician; from a young age her parents and teachers were aware of her unique talents when it came to numbers. She began in the west computing area, leading to her becoming a part of the space task group at NASA, all while having a family at home. Dorothy also had a family at home and was married. She worked as a human computer in the west computing building in NASA and was promoted to be the supervisor of the west computing unit. And Mary, began at the west computing area like the other two women until she was promoted and became the first black female engineer in NASA. Even though they each specialized in a different part of NASA, they all played a key role in history.
From the opening scene in the movie, you can already see how segregation impacted Katherine from a young age. This was only one of many moving scenes in which we can see how the women skin color set them back, even at work. In one scene, Katherine is running to the colored bathroom in the rain without an umbrella, after she is done, she runs back to the space task group building to be confronted by her boss, Mr. Harrison because she constantly disappears for 40 minutes. She then informs him that “there is no bathroom for me here because there is no colored bathroom in any buildings outside the west campus which is half a mile away”. This is very moving to see as she starts to bring up other issues she has to encounter daily as an African American. The following scenes puts a smile on your face when you see Mr. Harrison proceeds to take action and makes it clear he doesn’t want any more segregation in the workplace. It makes you feel like they’re taking a huge step forward.
However, with every step forward taken, there’s times we see how there is a setback. Dorothy is a very intelligent engineer, yet she becomes threatened with almost getting fired because she didn’t study at a certain University. She is given an alternative school to study at, but she can’t take classes their because it’s an all-white school. She goes to court for this and in this powerful scene, we can see her playing on the judges’ emotions. You can see that after her speech, he is considering it because like she said, “out of all cases you have heard in the court room today, which one will matter in 100 years from now, which one is going to make you the first”. He then grants her the right to take the classes and we see another step forward in history be made.
The film wasn’t only located at NASA, there were also some more personal scenes which helps you build a more personal connection with each character. You often catch yourself smiling at the actor’s accomplishments, getting frustrated at rules against them and disliking other characters who are against them. It’s a big eye opener on how much history has changed and how much African American women have overcome. Knowing that Hidden Figures is based on a true story makes it so much more amazing because we realize this all really happened in history. Thanks to three women, sexism and segregation in NASA was less present every day. It’s an amazing film in the way each scene showed one of the many difficulties colored women would face without making you feel it was a documentary because it included drama and humor occasionally and who doesn’t like humor.
Works Cited
Madeo. “May 14, 1961: Freedom Riders Attacked in Anniston, Alabama.” Home, calendar.eji.org/racial-injustice/may/14.
Nemiroff, Perri. “Hidden Figures Director/ Writer Theodore Melfi Interview – Collider Video.” Youtube, Collider Extras, 21 Jan. 2017, Accessed 7 Apr. 2021.
