Hidden Figures: Hollywood vs. History
In the movie Hidden Figures, the audience is taken through the lives of three African American women who are fighting for equal rights within their workplace. All three women have important jobs working for NASA among white men and women. The movie explains the historical events revolving around equal rights for women and African Americans as well as the space race against Russia. Even though the movie visits events that occured in history, some of the facts and scenes in the movie do not run parallel to those events that occured in real life. Some of the most important and dominate characters in the film are fictionalized. For instance, Al Harrison and Vivian Mitchell were not even real. Mr. Al Harrison
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She is a fictional character created to represent some of the unconscious bias and prejudice of the era. At best she is a composite of some of the people in higher positions like supervisors who worked for NASA. (www.historyvshollywood.com). Another scene that was added to the film by Hollywood is when one of the workers asked if Katherine was a janitor. This was added in to demonstrate how African Americans were degraded and looked down upon. Another embellishment in the film is the colored restroom scene. Unlike in the movie, there were colored restrooms on the east portion of NASA, but both Katherine and Mary did not know where. This resulted in Katherine using the unlable white restroom; “ 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” (www.historyvshollywood.com). On the other hand, Mary Jackson did go on the long time consuming journey to the colored restrooms that she was familiar with instead of searching for the
Since the movie is based on a true story, there aren’t very many parts that happen in the movie that never happened. The movie is extremely accurate in its portrayal of the military emotionally hardened father.
Katherine Watkins being a Quaker in the southern colonies she most likely was looked at unfavorably by the masses. Quaker beliefs made them against slavery, and having a person live in a state predominantly run economically by slaves was more the reason for Katherine Watkins not to be liked.
...al events. Some events that happened in the film, didn't actually happen in history. Especially the whole romantic theme, though the scenes with romance helped develop the plot of the film, and to elaborate on the film's themes and message. Although the film seems to be mostly inaccurate, it still held some historical accuracy.
Katherine Dunham, born on June 22, 1909 was an African American dancer. Her mother Fanny June Dunham died when she became sick and her father Albert Dunham Sr., left to work as a salesman. Dunham and her older brother Albert Jr., were raised by their loving aunt Lulu on the ghetto side of Chicago. At four years old, Dunham would go to the salon, her aunt’s workplace, and would always remember how much her mother loved music. It was not long before that when Katherine noticed how people would look at her aunt because of the color of her skin. It was why Lulu lost her job and had to move in with other relatives as her aunt could not afford their little apartment anymore. They moved several times with Dunham family members, where Katherine discovered
The Revolutionary war, sparked by the colonist’s anger towards taxation without representation, was a conflict between the United States and its mother country Great Britain. This event had been considered the most significant event in the American history. It separated the thirteen colonies from the tyrannical ruling of King George. The revolutionary war was not a big war, “The military conflict was, by the standards of later wars, a relatively modest one. Battle deaths on the American side totaled fewer than 5,000”1. However, the war proved that the thirteen colonies were capable of defeating the powerful Great Britain. Over the years there were many Hollywood films made based on the revolutionary war, 1776, Revolution, Johnny Tremain, and The Patriot. But, no movie has stirred up as much controversy as the Mel Gibbson movie The Patriot. The patriot is very entertaining but it is historically inaccurate. Too much Hollywood “spices” was added to the movie for viewing pleasures.
in the movie were fictional and names were changed, but the characters themselves did in fact
...is very historically accurate because the film incorporates, characters private lives, real film and speech, and great filming technuques that highlight the previous two examples.
Movies based on books are not always accurate relative to the plot of the book. In Fahrenheit 451 it can be said, there are some particular contrasts between the book and the movie. Despite the fact that the film emphasizes the subjects and premise of the book, there are numerous distinctions to differentiate. The motion picture Fahrenheit 451 is not accurate, taking into account the book's plot.
Describe some ways in which business values and artistic values in Hollywood contend with one another.
Slowly she asked "Is anyone there?" as she walked down the dark deserted road. When she heard a loud sound she turned abruptly trying again "Hello?" Met with only silence she picked up here pace almost running down the dirt road. Her nerves had just began to calm when she heard "WRRRREEENNNNNRRRRRRR" as a chainsaw started behind her. Running she started looking behind her hoping that whoever it was, wouldn’t catch her. With her lack of concentration she tripped over her high heels and face plants into the dirt, giving the murderer a chance to catch up. Slowly he lowered the chainsaw and began cutting --CUT -- This is a common plot used in horror movies today. Movies have changed over the years. They were different five years ago, fifty years ago, and even a almost a century ago. Technologies have unthinkable things possible. They have allowed us to re-sink "the unsinkable ship." They have allowed us to see dinosaurs in all their brutal glory. We have seen imaginary creatures, only ever mentioned in stories brought to life. Movies have moved so far from the 1920's and 1930's. They have developed ideals, rules and even standards; but where did they begin? Did movies just fall out of the sky? Did they just come into being? No they began slowly, silently moving towards a new era, the era we today call "Pre-code Hollywood"
Film makers use many historical events to spark up and idea for a movie. One historical event that is commonly used is war. One advantage a film maker has when using war as a movie plot is that there is already a lot of drama in war. This may seem like a good advantage for the film maker, however focusing on all of the drama of war leaves much of the actual info. When watching a war movie, you may feel like you have an understanding about the war, but when you really compare a war movie to an actual war you find that there is a lot of factual information left out. One may ask why would directors and film makers leave out the facts of war and focus on the drama? After reading The Faces of Battle by John Keegan and reviewing war movies such as Saving Private Ryan, and Pearl Harbor, one can clearly see what makes the Hollywood version of war different from real life war.
Before the Second World War began Hollywood’s purpose lied within entertainment for the American people. After the war started, the main focus shifted to wartime propaganda. Film was used to display the war in a way that did not show its true colors—including the censorship of soldier causalities and other negative connotations that are a simple fact of war. There was even a time in which some actors became better known to America than politians. Through films, Hollywood began to make a statement of their anti-Nazi beliefs. They began to make motion pictures for American recruitment into the Army as well as many that supported the war effort, and intended to make other Americans more aware of the war’s effect on the United States, and how people can get involved. Many European countries banned these Hollywood films, as they began to affect not only America but many other countries that were involved in the war as well.
Most of these events were pretty realistic, but some events seemed like a stretching of the truth. For example, it would be extremely hard for Tom and Midgely to escape the convict ship in real life. Yes, they may have a strong mind set, but they are still small fourteen year old boys. Other than that particular instance, Tom Tin could have been a real person in history based on the other events in the novel.
The movie I decided to analyze for this course was American History X (1998), which stars Edward Norton. Though this movie isn’t widely known, it is one of the more interesting movies I have seen. It’s probably one of the best films that depict the Neo Nazi plague on American culture. The film takes place from the mid to late 1990’s during the Internet boom, and touches on subjects from affirmative action to Rodney King. One of the highlights of this movie that really relates to one of the key aspects of this course is the deterrence of capital punishment. Edward Norton’s portrayal as the grief stricken older brother who turns to racist ideologies and violence to cope with his fathers death, completely disregards the consequences of his actions as he brutally murders someone in front of his family for trying to steal his car. The unstable mentality that he developed after his father’s death really goes hand-to-hand specifically with Isaac Ehrlich’s study of capital punishment and deterrence. Although this movie is entirely fictional, a lot of the central themes (racism, crime punishment, gang pervasiveness, and one’s own vulnerability) are accurate representations of the very problems that essentially afflict us as a society.
A movie called, Hidden Figures, was the true story of an African American woman named Katherine Johnson that had a niche for mathematics, she was above her class and age level when it came to solving math equations. She was gifted with the brainpower to solve college level math when she was still in grammar school. The story goes along her life's story on how she changed the name for African American women, back in her time, African Americans were segregated and had little to no chance in going into a professional career. Now, for African American women, it was even harder to get credit for their hard work by anyone of another race, especially since the majority of people were Caucasians.