Yes, this is rocket science. And behind every good man (astronaut) is apparently, a woman.
In Hidden Figures a team of African-American women team up to provide NASA with the major mathematical data needed to launch the program’s first successful space mission.
But there’s some problems surrounding that fact….this is Hampton, Virginia, 1961, so they don’t take easily to this type of thing. Yet, Katherine Johnson (Taraji Henson) was once just a little girl with a whiz mathematician mind. She earned attention and received a scholarship to further her education. So why shouldn’t they pay attention….
Fast forward…we see three women on their way to work when their ’57 Chevy stalls out. Inside the car are Dorothy Vaughan (Octavia Spencer) behind the wheel, Mary Jackson (Janelle Monae) riding shotgun, and Katherine, backseat, who’s grown into a working girl with alot of attitude. A police officer stops to see the three ‘negro’ women in a broken-down car. “We’re on our way to work. At NASA.” The officer is taken aback. Not only are they women, but they’re black women, and they’re doing what was expected to be man’s work.
When Russia’s orbital entry is established, there’s a shakeup at NASA, with President Kennedy demanding an immediate response. NASA can’t justify a space program that doesn’t put anything into space, and Mr. Harrison (Kevin Costner) is putting in another request for a mathematician…one who can handle analytical geometry, who can see beyond the questions, who can help his men circle the moon.
John Glenn has to get home safely, after all, so that he can tell the world all that he saw in space, and make history.
But Vivian (Kristen Dunst), from the Special Task Force, has a thing or two to say: “We never had a colored girl in here before, so don’t embarrass me.” Astronaut John Glenn (Glen Powell) sees it differently. It’s clear “[he] can’t get anywhere without the numbers.”
It’s a lot of pressure for Katherine, a widow, and a single working mother of three daughters, especially during a time when being a single parent was unheard of.
The movie has ‘Mad Men’ styling, but Civil Rights embarrassment. How could we be so unsophisticated even as late as the 60s not to allow black women to use the same bathroom as the white girls? Same laws that say we can send a white man to the moon?
Ordinarily melodrama is a bad thing in story-telling but this somehow works fluidly to help build a narrative, some history and a unheard of dream. Pharrell Williams offers an uplifting score with a soundtrack by Hans Zimmer. Not only is Hidden Figures the answer to last year’s #OscarSoWhite campaign, but we’re dealing with African-American women whose brilliance was overlooked and really were far more ‘hidden’ then we knew.
In a time when young American women are mourning Hillary Clinton’s loss to the White House, this is a story worth telling.
With the recent passing of America’s first man into space – John Glenn- timing is relevant in witnessing a bit of history that should be celebrated. This film should also be required viewing for all high school students. And it’s book, by Margot Lee Sheerly, required reading. Three and a half tiaras
A Monster Calls