Little nuance as female African-American NASA pioneers receive long overdue recognition

Rating: 5/10 (28 February 2017)

If you like your American History etched in a simplistic black and white, then perhaps Hidden Figures is for you. But if you require your historical "cup of tea" to be much more nuanced, with decided "shades of gray," then this entertaining yarn about three African-American women and their under-appreciated contribution to NASA's space race, might not be the accurate and important film that a majority of the critics and attentive film-goers believe it to be.
It's 1961 when Dorothy Vaughan (Octavia Spencer), Mary Jackson (Janelle Monáe) and Katherine G Johnson (Taraji P Henson), show up at NASA headquarters located at the Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. In Director Theodore Melfi's conception, Langley becomes a symbol of the racism of the times but in employing dramatic license, he makes it much worse than it actually was.
Take for example the segregated bathroom facilities—they were already eliminated by NASA three years earlier in 1958—so the scene where Kevin Costner's "Al Harrison" character utilizes a sledgehammer to take down the "coloreds only" sign, never happened. Nor did Katherine Johnson ever go to the segregated toilets—she used the whites only bathroom for years and was only challenged once—and on that occasion she merely ignored the objection and continued using the bathroom unopposed.
According to the non-fiction book of the same name by Margot Lee Shetterly which the film was based on, Johnson was quoted as saying that she was aware of racism but while working at Langley never "FELT" it. To her, she was just doing her job. And as far as being barred from joining the special Space Task Group, the truth of the matter was that she received the promotion in 1958 after working in the Flight Research Division for five years, beginning in 1953. She even co-authored a report while part of the Space Task Group in 1960.
Unlike Johnson who didn't feel like she was a victim of discrimination, Mary Jackson did indeed have to use separate bathroom facilities before 1958 (although the half a mile hike to get to the bathroom was an exaggeration). She didn't however, have to obtain a court order to take engineering courses—so the dramatic scene before the Judge was again a fictional construct. Instead she merely asked for an exemption and it was granted. And the actual promotion to engineer took place three years earlier—note that this is seven years before the passage of the Civil Rights Act.
Much is made in the film of how Dorothy Vaughn was passed over for a promotion to supervisor, opposed by her own supervisor, Mrs. Mitchell, a bigoted white woman who is depicted as patronizing. While Mitchell is a fictional character, it's even more shocking to learn that Dorothy became a supervisor in 1948! She also joined an integrated team in 1958, the year that NASA's name was changed from its previous acronym— NACA (The National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics).
Jim Parsons rounds out the film's collection of composite characters, playing the head engineer, Paul Stafford. He's there not as a symbol of racism but of male chauvinism—he's insistent on preventing Katherine from entering the room where the all-male Pentagon briefings are held.
Hidden Figures fulfills its well- intentioned, feel-good mission as it chronicles Katherine Johnson's role in the early space missions, as she provides complex mathematical calculations for Alan Shepherd's first US manned flight and John Glenn's first orbit of the earth.
The point of course is that the contributions of African-Americans to American history have often been ignored and the film's scenarists rightfully are determined to set the record straight and provide recognition where recognition has been long so overdue. In that respect, the film has accomplished a worthwhile goal.
The highly attractive Taraji P Henson, donning eyeglasses, steals the show as the former child prodigy, who proves to her colleagues that race and gender are no impediment to performing a job well done—especially when that job entails understanding those complex set of mathematical calculations beyond the scope of the average person.
The curmudgeon in me recognizes the bigger picture here involving the space race—what some discerning critics might classify as a "sacred cow." While I don't want to disparage the contributions of such brave individuals as John Glenn—it's necessary to recognize there's something much more sinister afoot here—and that is man's capacity for self-deception.
After all the space program really is a relic—In the early 60s, everything was geared toward putting a man on the moon. We managed to accomplish that—planting the flag, collecting a few rocks—but after that, everything has been anti-climactic. Indeed, we are no closer to answering the age-old question, are we alone in the universe?
I was shocked to see Katherine Johnson at the Academy Awards recently. Sitting in her wheelchair, it appeared time has certainly taken its toll on the once vibrant mathematician. The necessity and satisfaction in acknowledging minority contributions to our overall history pales in comparison to recognizing the fact of our inviolability of life here on earth—the rock group Kansas put it best when they sung, we'll all be soon like "dust in the wind."