Hidden Figures Gender Roles

Moving and inspirational, Hidden Figures stars Taraji Henson as Katherine Goble, Octavia Spencer as Dorothy Vaughn, Janelle Monáe as Mary Jackson, and Kevin Costner as Al Harrison. A perfect modern piece of fiction, the film was expertly crafted by the director, Theodore Melfi who also directed St. Vincent (IMDb). Winning thirty one awards and nominated for seventy one more, Hidden Figures received awards from the Golden Globes, the Academy Awards, Screen Actors Guild Award, and many others. On the website Rotten Tomatoes, 229 critics commented with an overwhelming 212 supporting the movie in a four month time span while continuing to receive good reviews. Three talented, unique, and intelligent women, Katherine Goble, Dorothy Vaughan, and

The film shows that determination will succeed in the face of prejudice. A computer for the space program, Mary Jackson could not achieve her dream of working at NASA as an engineer because NASA requires her to take extra classes at a local white high school; nevertheless, Mary went to the courts and succeeds. When Paul Stafford, a mathematician at NASA, coauthored papers with Katherine Goble, he refused to put her name on the paper; even though, Katherine contributed a large majority of the work until the end of the movie when they properly worked together after Katherine proved herself. Containing characters filled with hatred and dislike towards others, Hidden Figures shows that kindness from one person can change another's life. Slightly resigned, Mary immediately rejects the idea of applying to the engineer program saying “I am a negro women, I am not going to entertain the impossible,” but after an inspirational story, along with help from her boss, Mary, went down in history as the first african american female engineer in the history of NASA. After the space task force group did not have the need of a computer, Al Harrison gave Katherine Goble a permanent position so that she could continue to work for the space program and do valuable calculations otherwise she would have continued to be a computer and people would treat her with

Because the film takes place in 1961, the directors purposely used props, music, and sets to give the film the feel of the 1960’s. When the directors found props and built backgrounds, they ended up using vintage cars, clothing, and props in order to give the audience a feel for the time period. To complete the feel of 1961, Pharrell Williams created an all new unique soundtrack based on music that topped the charts during the time that the film explored. Packed with history, the stories in Hidden Figures tells what happened in the past; consequently, the film uses real videos and pictures from history. In the 1960’s whenever a rocket was launched or a special event happened they got filmed;consequently, the movie contains several videos showing launches of real rockets and a speech by president JFK which makes the film seem realistic. At the end of the film three pictures, one for each of the main women in the film, shows on the screen but instead of the actresses in the movie, the real women show up in the photos which shows how real the stories actually are. Another important technique, camera angles can help the actors and director to exhibit emotion or make important points just by directing the camera a certain way. Running through NASA, Katherine attempts to go to the bathroom, but the camera angle