Hidden Figures

Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan and Mary Jackson…..these are names that are unheard of while their accomplishment and achievements are never ever mentioned. So who are they and what are they, you may ask. Interesting question......

After work on a Saturday afternoon, I switched on the television to unwind and after some Korean TvN movie, I turned the channel to watch a HBO movie with the comfort of the old sofa set caressing the body. It was at this moment that the movie “ Hidden Figures” came to the TV screen. I have completely no idea what this movie was about and perhaps, the cold breezy afternoon was a cosy time to watch an English speaking movie. I am kinda used to watching Korean movies with BM or English subtitles just to understand the movie. Well, gotta have flavour in my movie taste , right? 

So, plonked on the sofa seat with a cup of coffee and some accompanying tidbits, the movie started with an African American child doing some mathematics and one of the teaches explaining to the child’s parents that the child is a brilliantly bright child and that she should get her further education at West Virginia State College. As the movie unfolded, I came to know about Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan and Mary Jackson.  

Adapted from Margot Lee Shetterly’s book : Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Spare Race, the film focuses on these three real-life African American female pioneers who are part of NASA’s team of human computers. This was a group made up of mostly women who calculated by hand the complex equations that allowed space heroes like Neil Armstrong, Alan Shepard and John Glenn to travel safety to space. Through sheer tenacity, force of will and intellect, they ensured their stamp of American history eventhough their story remained obscured from public view until now.

As the heroic story of these ladies unfolded, you could see what great sacrifice and humanly patience of these ladies. The discrimination and racist behaviour at those times were deplorable and how these women went through them. It was disheartening to see the colored and whites segregation overtones at work and many other injustices of those times. I marvelled at the tenacity, the patience and the endurance of these ladies in what they were doing. Mind you , these three women are brilliant mathematicians - one is a trajectory analysis expert, one is an expert Fortran computer programmer and the other is a female engineer.

Their stories are really an inspiration and encouragement to anyone who are willing to learn and survive. I especially like one particular scene in the show when NASA bigwig, Al Harrison played by Kevin Costner smashed down the “Colored People” signboard off the exterior bathroom wall. I also especially like the scene where Katherine Johnson ( Taraji P.Henson ) spoke to Al Harrison that there wasn’t any colored people bathroom at the block and she had to run 2 blocks to get to a “colored people bathroom” plus there is a “colored people only” coffee maker while she is working her ass off and she was dripping wet !!!. That was really a great, stunning and powerful statement indeed.

I was also particularly impressed when Mary Jackson went to the judge of City of Hampton to fight for her right to study engineering in the night school and she graduated as the first black female engineer. Powerful, powerful statement and guts all the way,man.

Sterling performance by Octavia Spenser in her role of Dorothy Vaughan makes her the hero in the movie in my book. Her role of assigning special mathematicians to special units makes her the unsung head of her all-black mathematicians department which is the West Computing office.The tenacity to get her fellow all-black female group of mathematicians team to learn computer makes them indispensable when the computer machine comes into action as Dorothy Vaughan taught her team on how to manage and use the computer while they were in her unit. That was really brilliant and inspiring lessons in life. Never be afraid to learn new things or you’ll be shipped out and fight for whatever is right in the right way.

What I have learn from the movie is that aggression doesn’t win the tale of the day. It takes a brilliant effort to learn things, be better at your work, get better in attitude and work harder that pays off despite the veil of racism, unfairness, cowardice and difficulties thrown at your face each and every day of your lives. 

Indeed this is a new breath of positivism instilled and an encouragement in our ailing world today. Sure, it is just a movie and life ain’t that rosy as it is but the life lesson behind the movie mattered a lot.

I could appreciate such movies as I do find them extremely good at times like these. Values, honor and integrity are propelled wonderfully despite a bleak outlook of our situation in today’s living. That, ladies and gentleman ,  is encouragement and tenacity.