review of reviews

Rating: 8/10 (24 March 2017)

There are reviews of this movie with pretty low ratings and the reasons that follow have to do with what the person feels is an overstated sense of racism at NASA at this point in time. Segregation, and hence racism in Virginia was enforced BY LAW, so you need to understand that first. There is some good fact checking that has been done about NASA, these women and that time period, and even though this movie is overstated a little, there are commenters who have said that racism pretty much didn't exist in NASA because they were focused on the mission. Well, that's far from true also. The movie does take poetic license on how it's applied and to who the effects were felt the most. For instance, this is from one site that checked the story and got details:
Did Katherine have to run across the NASA Langley campus to use the bathroom? Not exactly. In Margot Lee Shetterly's book, this is something that is experienced more by Mary Jackson (portrayed by Janelle Monáe) than Katherine Johnson. Mary went to work on a project on NASA Langley's East Side alongside several white computers. She was not familiar with those buildings and when she asked a group of white women where the bathroom was, they giggled at her and offered no help. The closest bathroom was for whites. Humiliated and angry, Mary set off on a time-consuming search for a colored bathroom. Unlike in the movie, there were colored bathrooms on the East Side but not in every building. The sprint across the campus in the movie might be somewhat of an exaggeration, but finding a bathroom was indeed a point of frustration.
As for Katherine Johnson herself, Shetterly writes that when Katherine started working there, she didn't even realize that the bathrooms at Langley were segregated. This is because the bathrooms for white employees were unmarked and there weren't many colored bathrooms to be seen. It took a couple years before she was confronted with her mistake, but she simply ignored the comment and continued to use the white restrooms. No one brought it up again and she refused to enter the colored bathrooms.
Another point that was made is that Katherine Johnson said she didn't FEEL racism while she was working there. You need to read in detail to understand that racism was present, although maybe not prevalent. But, what a person FEELS is unique and I know what she meant. She meant that she was wrapped up with the work and her feelings about THAT overrode any other feelings she may have had. It doesn't mean she didn't SEE racism. She CHOSE to feel the positives, since EVERY human controls their feelings whether they know it or not. You either do it actively or passively.
What is TRUE is these women DID face racism at NASA, and if you think they were treated or paid like a white man working at NASA, you are pretty out of touch with the 40s-60s Southern US, which still does it's best to find subtle ways to provide more advantage to whites. I could give a few examples right here where I live, such as closing any licensing offices in predominately black areas so if they want to get an ID they have to make a very long trip, followed by passing ID laws. Subtle.
They happened to be incredibly smart and NASA needed them so they accepted them even though they were black, but they weren't treated the same. The site I visited was History vs Hollywood. A good read there will fill you in to the reality of the story. For me personally, considering I KNOW how much humility, control and pride swallowing they had to go through to even be employed, I can kind of forgive the screen writing of variations of the truth, because they were surrounded by racism at the very least in many subtle ways and in some cases very overt ways. Of course the three women felt it and experienced it in different ways.
Go read before you write a review blasting it for its display of racism. Frankly, it would have been a biased movie to protect the feelings of the white audience if they DIDN'T show it, and it would have been more disingenuous than the slight exaggerations that ended up in the screenplay, and THAT would have been done to sell tickets and discs.