![]() Katherine Johnson | Photo Credit NASA Katherine Goble Johnson She gets the IBM to an operational state when the installation crew cannot, and she is named head of the IBM operators, which include not only the black women of the West Group but eventually several white women as well. Upon seeing the new IBM, Vaughan takes it upon herself to learn how it works and to teach the other in the West Group how to operate it. ![]() When an IBM mechanical computer is shown being installed at the Langley station, I thought that the film might be starting on a modern (or, at least, mid-century modern) take on John Henry, where, as shifts in American society allow for greater opportunity for African-American professionals to reach the top of their field, only to be outpaced by the superhuman capabilities of new machines. She persistantly petitions her superior, Vivian Mitchell (Kirsten Dunst), for the official position as head of the West Group, but is held back by the unadmitted racism of Mitchell (or of Mitchell’s superiors, whom she blames for Vaughan’s division no longer having an official head position, but whom we never meet). Vaughan is introduced as the unofficial head of the division of computers our three protagonists start out working in, the racially segregeted West Area Computing Group. Dorothy Vaughan | Photo Credit NASA Dorothy VaughanĪ more substantial portion of the movie is dedicated to Dorothy Vaughan (Octavia Spencer). This is, as far as I can tell, Monae’s first major acting role, which makes her performance the more impressive. Her plot isn’t really a big part of the movie, but it’s well done for what it is. Many of Jackson’s scenes are shared with Vaughan and Goble, where she’s a sort of lightly comic figure. Jackson sues the state for the right to pursue her studies, convincing the judge at her hearing that allowing her to attend night classes would make him someone of historical importance. She doesn’t have the education to be an engineer, and she can’t pursue education because, well, she lives in Virginia in the ’60s and black people aren’t allowed to attend college classes. She is a computer, working with the engineers developing a space capsule, but she wants to be an engineer herself. Mary Jackson (Janelle Monae) is the youngest of the trio of protagonists, and her plot is the simplest. Mary Jackson | Photo Credit NASA Mary Jackson ![]() They center around characters who are friends, and so they intersect at various points, but they are really three separate plots. Henson as Katherine Goble Johnson, Octavia Spencer as Dorothy Vaughan, Janelle Monae as Mary Jackson | Photo Credit IMDB Plot SummaryĪs I mentioned, this is a triple-biopic, which is to say, it has three plots. This is one of the best film’s I’ve seen in some time. But its execution was really outstanding. It billed itself as an inspirational true story, and it certainly is that. I went to this movie expecting it to be good. It tells portions of the life stories of Katherine Goble Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan, and Mary Jackson, who worked as computers (and later held more prominent positions) at NASA’s Langley, Virginia Research Center during the Space Race era of the 1960s. Hidden Figures is essentially a triple-biopic. Producers: Levantine Films, Chernin Entertainment, Fox 2000 Pictures, distributed by 20th Century Fox
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