“The media's the most powerful entity on earth.

They have the power to make the innocent guilty

and to make the guilty innocent, and that's power. Because they control the minds of the masses.
“Good morning delegates to the Media Matters Conference, that quote from Malcom X could not be
more relevant to todays society with the widespread reach of the internet, and more specifically the
media. The true power of the media is representation and the ability to influence the perspective of
the masses. We have seen this power recently with the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. Prominent
figures within today’s society have caused a racial hysteria towards the Chinese community of
Australia because of what they have said publicly. Things like Donald trump calling COVID-19 the
“China Virus” due to its origin in china, or Pauline Hanson saying that she does not trust the Chinese.
Many effects of this racial hysteria have ben seen, such as the ABC predicting that business in
Chinese restaurants have gone down 80 %, or the well know Yum Cha restaurant in the Brisbane
Chinatown “King of Kings” being forced to temporarily shut down due to the significant decrease in
business. The power of representation and changing of perspectives that the media holds isn’t
always negative, if used correctly it can be extremely positive. A positive use of this power can be
seen within the film Hidden Figures directed by Theodore Melfi, based off the book by the same title
written by Margot Lee Shetterly. Hidden Figures shows the perspective that the success of the space
race wasn’t mainly because of the white male engineer, but largely due to the numerous amounts of
black female mathematicians solving the complicated equations. Melfi Achieves this through
showing how the black women were disempowered, and how they gained power by overcoming the
injustices they faced.

Hidden figures follows the lives of three black women who worked for NASA in 1961, Katherine
Johnson, Mary Jackson and Dorothy Vaughn. Melfi chose to tell the story from these three women’s
perspectives as they were very prominent figures within NASA who achieved greatness despite
enduring many injustices. One of the first scenes of the film masterfully illustrates the inherent
injustices that the women face because and their race and gender, and hints at the overall tone and
story arc of the film. The scene begins with Katherine, Mary and Dorothy attempting to fix their
broken car when a police car with its siren on approaches. Upon noticing the car, the three ladies
line up at one side of the car while the police car is still approaching. And exchange the following
dialogue. Dorothy says, “There aint’ no crime in a broken down car,” then Mary says,” No crime
being black neither,” then Katherine says to Mary, “Button it up Mary, nobody want to go to jail
behind your mouth.” These two elements suggest that the women already expect that they are
going to be treated unfairly by the police officer. As soon as the police officer steps out of his vehicle,
the camera angle outlines the fact that he already has his hand on his baton, suggesting that he is
already apprehensive about the three women, most likely due to their race. Then after Mary
responds to one of the things the police officer said, he gets up in her face and aggressively asks her
“Are you being disrespectful?” This and the camera angles of him being physically over her, suggests
that the police officer believes that he is better than these women due to their race and gender. A
distinct part of this scene is that the police officer doesn’t take his hand off of his baton until he
learns that they work for NASA and that they working on the space race and that they are late for
work. Throughout the scene the three women use their intellect to influence the police officers
opinion of them to the point where he offers to escort them to work. In the scene, there is a distinct
lack of music for the majority of the scene, which highlights the seriousness and the high stakes of
this scene. There is music again when the police escort starts, which adds to the sense of victory.
This scene not only shows the injustices they face on a day to day basis, but hints at the overall story
arc of the three women going from disempowered to empowered. This scene may show how they
are disempowered in daily life, but what about their work life.
Later in the movie, there is a scene where Katherine is questioned about her whereabouts by her
boss, Al Harrison, after running in the rain to go to the toilet. This scene perfectly illustrates the
numerous injustices that the black women faced due to their race. The scene starts with Al on a
raised platform above Katherine while he questions what she was doing and where she was. Him
being on this raised platform could be seen as a symbol of his power over Katherine. After explaining
that she was at the bathroom, Al then walks down the stairs to be in front of Katherine while he
continues to question her, but now in a less aggressive tone. This could be seen as Al coming down
to Katherines level in society to try and understand her. The camera angle as goes from looking
down on Katherine and looking up on Al, to looking at them at the same level, which suggests that Al
is coming to sympathize with her instead of looking down on her. Kathrine then goes on a very
dramatic and intense monologue in which she outlines many of the injustices she faces while
working at NASA, which include there being no “Coloured” toilets within half a mile of her building
(it was illegal for black people to go to white only toilets at the time), the fact that she is underpaid
and overworked, and the fact that there is a “Coloured only” coffee mug. By appealing to his sense
of emotions, Katherine unintentionally changes Al’s perspective, which leads him to go to the west
wing (the building which was designated for black people) and tear down the coloured only sign
above the bathroom and say “No more coloured restrooms, no more white restrooms, just toilets.”
By pointing out the injustices she faced to her boss, she did not only empower herself, but the entire
black community working for NASA. There is a distinct lack of music again in this scene until she
starts her monologue. The music starts of soft, but slowly gets louder until the climax of the scene
where Al tears down the sign. The music adds to the seriousness of the scene, and outlines the
victory for Katherine. This shows how the were disempowered in their work, but how did they
become empowered.

One of the many scenes where the women become in empowered is the scene in which Mary goes
to court to seek permission to got to an all-white high school. The scene begins with the Judge
stating that despite the federal government says, Virginia is still a segregated state, which implies
that he has no intentions of changing his views. The theme which is used throughout the movie of
elevation being used to represent power is seen here, as the judged is on a higher level than where
Mary is. Mary than ask to approach the board, which she is allowed. This could be seen as Mary
rising to his level in society. She then goes on to appeal to his need to be the first within his family by
stating what he did first in his family. She then appeals to his need to be the first do something
within society, by letting her be the first Black women to attend a segregated high school. She then
finally appeals to his want to be remembered in history. All of this appealing to his emotions using
her intellect culminates into his opinion of black people changed enough to allow her to attend the
night classes at the high school. Music is again used as a tool to symbolize the gain of power. There is
no music in the scene until Mary starts appealing to the Judges emotions, and reaches its climax
when she is allowed to attend the high school.

Theodore Melfi has used a variety of filmic techniques to influence the audience’s perspective on the
role of black women in history. This film masterfully showed their disempowerment, and highlighted
their achievements. How can the Australian media learn from this movie? The media shouldn’t stop
showing disempowering perspectives, but more perspectives in general, specifically empowering
ones. Through the showing of perspectives, the media can incite great political and social change.