Movie Analysis: Hidden Figures

Hidden Figures follows the true story of three African-American women working at NASA during the height of the space race with Russia in the late 60’s. These women had brilliant minds, however, they were “women of color”. These two obstacles greatly hindered their deserved advancements. Having said that, this story captures how these amazing women would not be held down and were determined to go as far as their intelligence would take them regardless of their race or sex. In the end, these three women were extremely vital to the success of the United States putting a man on the moon. Overall, the film was mostly an accurate portrayal of how these women achieved their goals. In the 1960s, being black and a woman were significant barriers to be overcome in the workforce. The movie demonstrated that brilliantly when a joke was said by one of the three women at the beginning of the movie. They were fixing their car and Mary commented on how they were going to be late, then Katherine replied by: “ [You can] sit on the back of the

[She] didn't feel any segregation. [She] knew it was there, but [she] didn't feel it” (Katherine Johnson).

The movie did a tremendous job showing that to the audience as it is difficult to prove how someone couldn't feel the segregation happening . On the first day of her new job, she was given piles of papers to work on, where she had to stay late at night on her desk to finish. She would also take her work to the bathroom to try and finish it there because the “colored” bathroom was half a mile away. Regardless, they managed to prove that she was too focused on her work by adding these challenges to her which then relates back to the real Katherine’s