Recent Posts
Entertainment October 21, 2016
When you hear the phrases “astronauts” and “NASA”, what pops into your mind? Sending a monkey into outer space? Dreaming as a child of rocketing into the stars? Famous figures like Neil Armstrong? A new film, “Hidden Figures,” will paint another picture in your brain: the black women who played important roles in NASA.
Premiering on January 13, 2017, the movie shares the true story of three African American women who, while living the 1960’s Jim Crow South, earned invaluable positions at NASA’s space program. The leading ladies of the film, Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spencer and Janelle Monáe, respectively play Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan and Mary Jackson. For all of you book lovers, the film is based on a book by Margot Lee Shetterly.
The film’s star? Katherine Johnson, Henson’s character, who deserves the title of “human computer” thanks to her skillful calculation of rocket trajectories in NASA’s Apollo space missions to the moon. If you love hearing about women kicking butt in male-dominated fields, you’ll love Johnson’s story. Johnson, now 97, graduated high school at age 14 and majored in math and French at West Virginia State College. The young woman was regarded as such a math prodigy that her professor added new math courses just for her. (And you thought just surviving Calculus was impressive!) By age 18, Johnson graduated summa cum laude.
During her time with NASA, Johnson worked as an aeronautical engineer for the majority of her career and performed vital calculations. In 1962, when NASA first used electronic computers to send John Glenn around the Earth, officials asked Johnson to check that the computer’s numbers were correct. During the Apollo 13 mission, Johnson’s calculations for backup procedures allowed the space team to safely return to Earth.
Although the film features African American women in leading roles, it isn’t meant as a response to the all-white nominees in the Oscars last year. Donna Gigliotti, an Oscar-winning producer for “Shakespeare in Love,” picked up the movie about two years ago, and the book has been in the works for years. Henson has expressed her frustration with the media labeling movies as “black films,” and predicts this will happen to “Hidden Figures” as it receives more publicity. “I don’t wake up and go, ‘Let’s see, this weekend, I’m going to see a Chinese film, I’m going see a black film, no I’m going see a white film with a black person in it,’” she explained. “Who does that?”
Her point is especially important considering the last Academy Awards and the nature of the film itself. “Hidden Figures” not only touches on race, but also highlights the contributions that women made in the 1960’s space race, which has often been ignored in other accounts of NASA’s history. Shetterly felt stunned after first learning about Katherine Johnson’s work in NASA, asking, “Why haven’t we heard this before?” Hopefully, after the release of Shetterly’s book and Gigliotti’s subsequent film, that’s one question we’ll be able to stop asking.
