OBVIOUS BRILLIANCE

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T. Kalick

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Bethany Hall, Staff Writer

The movie “Hidden Figures” came out back in January of this year (yes, I know I’m very late on this). This is a story of three strong, independent, African American women that work at NASA during the civil rights movement in the early 1960s. This movie follows these women, who are trying to work hard and move their way up in their careers as they try to start the American space program.

I was finally able to watch this movie in my history class, and I fell in love. In a world of successful, white men in the big leagues of NASA, and black women that are moved to a basement-like room, three of those women step up and realize that they are worth so much more and, even better, everyone around them starts to see their potential. The main heroine, Katherine Goble Johnson (Taraji P. Henson), works alongside the main mathematicians to find the right numbers for the Friendship 7 spacecraft. While doing this, she faces many challenges being a black woman in a room full of white men. Everyone slowly realizes how brilliant she is and how she’s the best chance for this first spacecraft to take off. It also follows her personal life, being an example for her three girls and her life at home.

Katherine’s friend, Dorothy Vaughan (Octavia Spencer), is in search for a role title more than what she has. She is told countless times that she is not able to be a supervisor for her department, even though she has all the qualifications and responsibilities that show a supervisor. She fights for what she wants and she ends up fixing a machine vital for NASA and the space program. Again, people around her see her brilliant mind with their own eyes and she is eventually rewarded for her work in the end.

The last main character, Mary Jackson (Janelle Monae), has two kids and a husband that hates watching black people fail because of the color of their skin. Mary wants a higher job title as well, but she can’t get it without her degree in engineering. After fighting in court to get permission for extra classes, she finally earns her degree and is able to move up, as well.

This movie was incredibly executed, with a phenomenal cast and a beautiful storyline that brought the real life story amazing justice. It had real life footage from the space program tests and newscasts, which did nothing but add an amazing feel to the whole story. I was at a loss for words; this movie took my breath away. The only thing that I had a problem with was the scenes were very abrupt. It was as if they didn’t quite get enough footage when they were shooting, and they edited it together and hoped that no one would notice. Other than that, I really can’t say anything bad about this film. B+