Photo courtesy of: The Royal Astronomical Society
The text that I have chosen to examine is the 2016 film Hidden Figures, directed by Theodore Melfi. Based on the real lives of mathematicians Katherine Johnson, Mary Jackson and Dorothy Vaughan, the film follows their lives as they navigate their careers as Black women as they face segregation and discrimination based on their sex and race. Our main character, Katherine, is assigned to work as the first Black woman on a Space Task Group, where her expertise and knowledge are often dismissed.
Over the course of the film, it is made apparent to the audience that Katherine is an outsider, viewed as lesser than by the white men she works with. She is unable to take credit for the work she does, with credit instead going to her the white, male head engineer. This discrimination goes without much acknowledgement until her supervisor confronts her about her lengthy “breaks”. The audience is aware of her reason why: Due to Jim Crow laws and general sexism, there is no bathroom, that Katherine is permitted to use in the building she works in. Because of this, she is forced to walk a half-mile to use the restroom. Her supervisor admits that he was unaware of this. It is an example of how ingrained this discrimination is—of course her supervisor was aware of segregation, but because of how deeply ingrained it is in his mind, and how much this issue doesn’t affect him personally, he wasn’t consciously aware of how it affected her.
In relation to the content we have discussed this semester, this movie shows racial injustice and intersectionality (Katherine and her colleagues, as Black women, experience a combination of injustices that are unique to them). When recalling this text, I was reminded of March, Vol. 3 by John Lewis. Lewis writes of the part he played in the Civil Rights movement, which occurred at during the same general time period as Hidden Figures. His struggles parallel those of Katherine and her colleagues, as they face injustice both outright and in more subtle insidious ways. The women’s intelligence is underestimated, their ideas are taken from them, and their humanity is dismissed.
The director and screenplay writer would want their audience to come away from this film with a heightened understanding on the intersectional effects of racism and sexism. The film is meant to be both informative and empowering, as Katherine, Mary, and Dorothy go on to make history in their fields against all odds.