Glenn knows enough to respect and trust Johnson's opinion and intellect above everyone else's, but he still refers to her somewhat in a somewhat dehumanizing way, as "the girl." It's one of the many moments from the film that accurately represents that challenges, both explicit and more subtle, that Johnson, Vaughan, and Jackson faced because they were black women. That the quote from the move is real is especially fascinating in the way that it is both progressive and also not. I want this human computer to check the output of the electronic computer, and if she says they're good, you know, I'm good to go as part of one of my pre-flight checklists. That might seem like a classic movie-magic scene that fictionalized a loosely true event, but in an NPR interview Shetterly, quoting directly from transcripts, confirms that the scene actually happened almost exactly like that in real life. He's not sure if everything is right, so he demands that the numbers get checked by the only person he can trust: "get the girl to check the numbers," he says, referring to Johnson, who was a lead research mathematician. In one already iconic scene from the film, Glenn is concerned about the launch. The women's mathematical, physics, and engineering work was integral to the success of America's space program, and particularly to the launch of Friendship 7, the space shuttle that brought John Glenn into orbit and officially made an American orbit the Earth for the first time, in 1962. Shetterly's book is fantastically well-researched, walking readers through the social and political world in which Johnson, Vaughan, and Jackson lived, and telling a detailed narrative of their lives and the work they accomplished. Hidden Figures is based off of the nonfiction book Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race, written by historian Margot Lee Shetterly. These women were indeed real, amazing people, but how accurate is Hidden Figures?įortunately for all, the filmmakers had an incredible amount of primary and secondary source material from which to get all the details right. Henson, Dorothy Vaughan, played by Octavia Spencer, and Mary Jackson, played by Janelle Monae. The film, based on a true story, follows three brilliant women "computers" at NASA in the '60s: Katherine Johnson, played by Taraji P. Hidden Figures, the inspiring new film about the African-American women who made it possible for NASA to send a man to space, is getting great reviews and lots of deserved attention for the way it finally shines a spotlight on some of the many heroes from history that, because of America's ingrained racism and sexism, have not received due credit and recognition for their work.
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