Post 5 (in-class write)

1. The important knowledge and understanding about America’s history that someone can learn from watching my film, Hidden Figures, is that America used to really be different in terms of racism and sexism. In the movie the three main African American women characters Katherine Johnson (a B.S. in Math and French from West Virginia State College), Dorothy Vaughan (Wilberforce University), and Mary Jackson (Hampton University), face many obstacles in their way just because their skin color and their gender. These three women were highly intelligent and well educated but that didn’t mean anything in the eyes of the high up people at NASA. That’s just the way the United States was back in the 1950-60s. This idea that black women couldn’t do the things that the white men and women in America could do was really false because the African american women woking at NASA were some of the smartest women there.
   
   At NASA, the workers were all generally white males, some females but just as assistants etc. that worked in the front and main buildings. There was a building were the West Computing group, a group of about thirty African American women worked behind the scenes doing calculations and working as “human computers”. In that building was Katherine, Dorothy, and Mary which were three of the smartest women there. But because they were African American women, they were pushed to the back because women can’t be smart and work at NASA, especially black women. But these were some of the most humble people, in an interview with Katherine Johnson, now 99 years old, she even said she didn’t do anything alone. Even though she calculated the final “go-no-go” landing coordinates and was more accurate than the IBM machine, she still won’t take credit. This is so important because back then, everyone that was working in the same section as her was so mad that she was better at everything than they were because she was not a white male. The way Katherine slowly changed these people’s minds about how they looked at different races and genders was incredible. 

       2. In the movie Hidden Figures, they actually stuck really close to the story line. The only things that people wouldn’t know from just watching the film is that some of the characters aren’t real. Part of the reason was probably a dramatic effect choice and the other reason was that the director couldn’t gain rights to some of the characters. For example, there is a character named Al Harrison, played by Kevin Costner, which serves as like a supervisor/boss to Katherine and everyone in the office with them in the fight/orbit section. Al was in fact not a made up character, but he was three people combined into one. Al served a really big role and everything he does was really positive and helpful. For example, Katherine had to run a mile to go to the bathroom and also there was only one coffee pot so they got her an empty small one. She kind of snapped at him because of how she was being treated and later after she leaves you see him rip the “colored” label off the coffee pot. In another scene she is walking through the hall and there is a crowd around Al swinging a crowbar at the “colored restrooms” sign to knock it down. 

Another thing that is super important that was going on around that time was that the treatment of African Americans was way worse than seen in the movie. They do show a little of it in the movie when Dorothy is out in the town with her children and there is a protest and the police are crowded around with their angry dogs and looks like there is something bad about to happen. Later there is another scene showing somewhat bad treatment when Dorothy and her kids are physically grabbed and shoved out of a white library. That was only mild treatment compared to what would have been happening to African Americans all over. They would let police attack dogs loose on any age if they were protesting, they would spray them with painful firehoses which can rip skin they’re so powerful, and much worse. I think the reason that the director didn’t show the super violence because this movie, even though it’s about the real struggle they went through, is supposed to have an overall happy theme because the friendship 7 flight was a success, katherine got to work high up and do calculations, Dorothy got to became the first African American supervisor, which was her dream to be a supervisor, and Mary became the first African American women to be an engineer at NASA.

       3. If the director of Hidden Figures had to add 20 minutes to the movie and still keep the attention of the audience, I think he should add more of what the three women had to deal with outside of their work place. They do have some scenes at home or out in the town, but to really show how much these women had to fight I think they should have focused on even though things. For example, when Mary Jackson wanted to be in the engineering program at NASA but they kept rejecting her and then said that it was because she needed to have taken specific classes from a specific school. The issue was that this was a segregated school and wasn’t offered to her so she was unable to. She even said, “every time we can get a step ahead, they move the finish line.” which the response to that was, “You should be lucky you have jobs at all.” so we see how for her being an engineer NASA was. She went to court to testify that she needed to attend this school in order to go into this program and they let her. 

I think just going in more depth about Mary’s struggle and her court hearing would really show what they went though daily just to earn their basic rights. I envision scenes that would show all the preparation like filling out all the forms for her to be in the engineering program at NASA. Another scene could be her at court for a longer time, in the movie the court hearing seemed really shortened and like they maybe condensed it for time reasons. A final scene could be her after winning the case and actually show her at school more than she did. They could show how the men in the class treated her, how the teacher treated her, etc. This would really show the struggle that we don't see as much of like I talked about in my second question.