"I read between the lines."

Rating: 10/10 (8 March 2019)

Hidden Figures follows the lives of three of the African-American women that work in various departments for NASA. Katherine Goble(Johnson) is a computer that moves to the space task group because she's really good at analytical geometry. Her job is to check the work of other people in the group, but she can't see all the information so she can't check their work efficiently and Paul Stafford is a jerk about it. When she figures out why the Atlas rocket didn't get high enough she got yelled at because the calculations she used were classified and blacked out with a Sharpie. She leaves at the same time everyday to go to the bathroom and she gets yelled at for that so she yells at them because the closest colored restroom is across the campus. "There are no colored bathrooms in this building, or any building outside the West Campus, which is half a mile away. Did you know that? I have to walk to Timbuktu just to relieve myself! And I can't use one of the handy bikes. Picture that, Mr. Harrison. My uniform, skirt below the knees and my heels. And simple necklace pearls. Well, I don't own pearls. Lord knows you don't pay the colored enough to afford pearls! And I work like a dog day and night, living on coffee from a pot none of you want to touch! So, excuse me if I have to go to the restroom a few times a day." She had every right to be angry. The bathrooms that were available didn't have the "colored" label on them and it would have been frowned upon to use one that wasn't labeled for her to use. She could've gotten into big trouble and her whole goal was to stay out of trouble. Except when she figured out why the Redstone rocket and the Atlas rocket kept failing because she held the paper up to the light to see what had been hidden from her. She got the answer right so, why did it matter so much that she "read between the lines". She got the answer from what she was given, not necessarily what she could see. After she explained why she went to the bathroom at the same time every day, Mr Harrison is seen with a crowbar taking down the colored sign on the bathroom at the west campus. When they finally get to the point of sending someone into space it's her idea to use old math to figure out when exactly to have him do whatever to get back home. Katerine was one smart cookie.
Mary Jackson wanted to be an engineer but she couldn't because the white community changed the requirements. She had to take classes at an all white high school and she couldn't do that without going to court. She makes a really good argument when the judge asks her why he should let her go to that school.
Dorothy Vaughan just wanted to be supervisor over the West Computing group, but the white manager lady kept declining her application. When NASA gets the super computer, it's because of her that it even starts working. She becomes supervisor at the very end of the movie.