Gyle Rowen G.

Lizardo – BSOT – 1A

HIDDEN FIGURES

Hidden Figures is a 2-hour long movie about three brilliant African American

women working at NASA and the impact and changes that they have occurred brought

to NASA and the future of space travel. I was hesitant at first before watching the movie,

because I rarely watch movies that I have not heard of before. So, I did some research

on who were casted, and when I have heard that Octavia Spencer is playing one of the

lead roles in the movie, I was no longer hesitant to watch it because she is one of my

favorite actresses who is in some of my favorite movies like Coach Carter. Also, when I

have learned that Mahershala Ali is also playing in this movie, I am now eager to watch

it because of his performance in Green Book.

Hidden Figures is a 2016 biographical movie about three brilliant African

American women working at NASA: Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan, and Mary

Jackson. These three women serves as the brains behind the launch of John Glenn into

orbit. They have made an impact on the future of space travel and the country. But,

along the way, these three have suffered not just sexism, but also racism while working

in NASA. The movie’s setting was set in 1961 in Virginia, at that time, racism and

sexism is a common thing in USA. Segregation was also common at that time, such as

bathrooms, water fountain, schools, etc. Even while at working in NASA, they were all

segregated, Katherine and her fellow co-workers were working at the West side building

of NASA while Al Harrison and his fellow co-workers are all working at the East side

building. As the movie goes on, Al Harrison is having issues because he was looking for

a mathematician who can do Analytic geometry and no one in in the East side building

can handle it. So, they looked at the West side building for someone who can handle
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Analytic geometry, and they have found Katherine Globle. She was then recruited by

the Space Task Group directed by Al Harrison to do the math. When she entered the

room, all the workers were looking at her when she entered, they were confused and

astounded to have an African American woman working with them. She then introduced

herself to Al Harrison, and he advised Katherine to double-check the math of other

people working here and Paul Stafford has a bit of an ego when it comes to his work.

And he insisted that he can handle on his own. While Katherine was unpacking, Paul

Stafford was redacting some of the information on the papers and gave them to

Katherine. She gave feedback about how she can’t work with it because it was lacking

information, and he replied “Work on what you can read, the rest are classified. You

don’t have clearance.” She panicked a little bit tried to run off to the bathroom but

there was no bathroom for African American in that building so, she ran all the way back

to the West side building which is a half a mile away. There is a clear sign of

Patriarchal system in the workplace and Stafford was the one who made it clear to

Katherine that she was not welcomed there. And he was clearly sexist and racist

towards Katherine because he doesn’t want to lose his pride and privilege. Let us then

move on to Mary Jackson, she was assigned to Mr. Zielinski to work with Mercury

Seven for testing and when she arrived, she was almost got caught up in the testing

chamber. She then panicked and rushed to get into the control room and accidentally

got her shoe stuck, so she abandoned it and ran. When she entered the room, the

people working were all looking at her and was dumbfounded by her that an African

American woman was in the room. After the test was done, Zielinski examined the

problem of the test, and Mary tagged along with him. He dictates what each of the
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problem was and asked her what she think on solving it, and she answered it with ease

and impressed him. He informed Mary that there is an opening for the Engineer Training

Program in NASA, and he encouraged her to join it. He doesn’t want to see her wasting

her talents of becoming an engineer. She tried to deny the offer because she thinks it is

impossible for an African American especially a woman to become an engineer. It was

never heard of at that time, but Zielinski reassures her that they are living the impossible

and they are trying to make it possible. Then finally, we will be looking at Dorothy

Vaughan, she was looking forward for a promotion because of how hard working she is,

and she hasn’t made a mistake while working there in her life. But she was denied by

Vivian Mitchell because of her race. Let us go back to Katherine, after some time now,

she was still receiving redacted papers and could not do her job properly, she tried to

voice her concern to Paul, but he just brushed her off that he and other two engineers

confirmed that the math was correct. She then finds another way to see through the

marker and tried to hold it up to the light and she was able to read a few words out of it

and that was enough for her to solve the math. The people in the room were astounded

by her work especially Paul and she has shown her capabilities to others. After that,

Harrison then granted her the clearance to see the classified information because of her

work. Let us move on to Mary, she tried to apply for the Engineering Program at NASA

but was rejected by Vivian because they have requirements to apply, and she was

missing the advanced extension courses in the University of Virginia. She then argued

that the University of Virginia is still an all-white school, so she took this to court, and

she was able to get a court date. Let us move on to Dorothy, she was still trying to get

Vivian on her good side for a promotion but was unfortunately a failure, and while she
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was getting back to the East building, she saw the IBM machine and she was interested

with it. So, after some time, she sneaked inside the room and tried to learn more about

it, she then passed this along to her fellow co-workers in the East side building and they

were all shocked on what it could do. She then returns to the room and tried to make it

work, the other people in the East side building were having trouble with it but she was

able to fix it with ease and after fixing it for some time she was then caught by the two

workers and started to question what she was doing there. Then one of them noticed

that the machine was working and started to print out numbers and they were

impressed of what she did. Let us go back to Katherine, she had enough of the sexism

and racism in her workplace and she snapped when Harrison was angry at her for not

being at her desk. He was dumbfounded that she was going to the bathroom at the

West side building, and he took action against it. On the next day, he tried to break a

sign that has the “Colored Bathroom” on it and the others from the West side and the

East side building were witnessing at what he was doing. Once he broke the sign, he

then explained that there is no more segregation in using the bathrooms from now on.

And that is the start of the change in NASA. Katherine then was able to solve the

problem that the others were trying to solve and thanks to her, John Glenn was able to

orbit around the Earth and landed safely. Mary then was able to argue with the court

that being first at something that hasn’t been done before will make a change and she

was able to attend the University of Virginia at night classes. Lastly, Dorothy was able to

get the promotion and her co-workers from the East side building was able to come with

her to manage the IBM machine. Also, Mary’s husband disapproved of her working as

an engineer because he never heard of a woman becoming one, and that is a clear sign
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of How society define Man and Woman. But she proved him wrong, and he accepted

her. Katherine’s love interest unintentionally discriminates her for being a woman

solving math and that is a sign of microinsult. He then apologized and admitted that it

his own fault.

These three women changed NASA forever and has made an impact in the

future. Even though they were struggling to get the approval of the workers at the East

side building, they never gave up and won the approval of the people working there one

at a time. After finishing the movie, I thought of how great the movie is and I was rooting

them because of they were the underdog of the movie. And whenever Katherine solved

the math, I get goosebumps. I was also thinking that back then, we were horrible to

each other, and I was glad that we changed. My strongest emotion that I have felt while

watching the movie is that I was anxious for the last part of the movie. The tension was

big whether he would make it alive or not. I haven’t really encountered anything like any

event in the movie in my life. Well, it is unique to the African American women because

of how much impact that these three women did to the country and space travel. I have

learned that we are all humans, and we must treat each other the same whether you

are a man or a woman or from a different race. We can address these issues by

sending the message that we are all the same and we are all humans.