The Film 'Hidden Figures' By Theodore Melfi

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'Hidden Figures' is an award-winning film directed by Theodore Melfi (IMDb, 2018). It is about three astonishing African American women, (Katherine G . Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan, & Mary Jackson ) who broke through the glass ceiling, and rose the ranks of NACA/ NASA, and succored the launch of John Glenn into orbit, and guaranteed his safe return (IMDb, 2018). After the film, I have researched, and noted a few differences, and similarities corresponding to the film, and in reality. For example, some differences presented in the movie were that Glenn who died on December 8, at age 95 did not have the chance to see 'Hidden Figures', but he was on record for not liking the film. In a 1996 interview he stated that he didn't believe the film, "accurately reflected the people involved in the Mercury program, including me." In another interview starring Bill Barry, chief historians, of NASA, he said: "From a history [sic] perspective, it is cringing worthy." Yikes. For the audience watching 'Hidden Figures' they might have believed Katherine, …show more content…

In simple terms, these were just people that did calculations by hand, such as Katherine G. Johnson. Some other examples of accuracies were when Johnson requested to attend the space briefing, she was told that women didn't belong in there. This shows the sexism, and how women were treated in the 1960s. Speaking of Katherine, she did compute John Glenn's trajectory, and when it was time to lift off (launch), John Glenn asked Mrs. Katherine to double-check the electronic computer's calculation for his first orbit. Aside from that, some momentous moments were that Dorothy Vaughan, was in fact, NACA's first black women supervisor in 1948, and Mary Jackson was indeed the first African American engineer, (HistoryvsHollywood.com ,

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