To understand today, we should look at the past; the choices that were made in the past have their own consequences today, and the past is what shapes today’s events. The historical context of our origins is what made us today; they can empower, and make us learn things. As it is crucial for young people to understand their roots, it is also essential to know their roots from genuine sources. Not only our elders but also books, documentaries, and films are reliable, outstanding sources. Thus, there is a great responsibility on the writers or producers of those things to make them authentic, creditable, and beneficial for the audiences. Historical accuracy plays a key role when we try to portray something about real people or events. The non-fictional movies based on inspiring historical figures have always been a progressive trend in the market of Hollywood. A movie named “Hidden Figures” came out in 2016; the movie is based on three African American women who were respectively mathematicians and engineers working in “The National Aeronautics and Space Administration” or NASA. The film highlights the myriad experiences of being a woman of color in the 1940s; discrimination against African American people and sexism against women which is greatly depicted by the actors in the film. While the film is acclaimed as a moving portrayal of under-represented Black women in science, the film actually continues to perpetuate racist stereotypes through an inaccurate timeline, white savior trope, and composite characters which can give the viewers the wrong impression to an extent about racial segregation and sexist behaviors during the mid-20th century.
The three ladies were best friends, and the timeline was set in 1961 in the movie, which was the complete opposite of history. To describe the inaccurate timeline of “Hidden Figures”, the backgrounds of the three ladies must be introduced first. According to the biography of Katherine Johnson (played by Taraji P. Henson) by author Margot Lee Shetterly, she joined the NACA, or National Advisory Committee of Aeronautics in 1953. She and her husband moved to Newport News, Virginia when one of her relatives told her that there were open positions at the segregated West Area computing section at NACA’s Langley laboratory, which at the time, was run by Dorothy Vaughan (played by Octavia Spencer). Katherine Jackson was most known for her mission: the 1962 orbital mission of John Glenn. Astronaut John Glenn asked the engineers for Katherine Johnson to run the numbers and calculations again manually before the launch. Mary Jackson (played by Janelle Monáe) in fact changed her jobs a total of four times before landing her career as a “human computer” at Langley due to her biography by Shetterly. She did not even flinch to fight for her education, she assured her special permission from the City of Hampton to join the classroom that was reserved only for “white” students, and her strong dedication led her to become NASA’s first black female engineer in 1958. When Mary Jackson started her job in Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory’s segregated West Area Computing unit in 1951, Dorothy Vaughan was already a supervisor as in the biography by Shetterly. Dorothy Vaughan served as the head of West Area Computing Pool; she was both NACA’s first black supervisor and one of few female supervisors at the time. She retired in 1971 when she never got promoted to a management position at Langley despite seeking one. The legacy of Dorothy Vaughan played an important initiative in the success of the careers of Mary Jackson and Katherine Johnson, but the three women never had a stronger connection among them. The producers’ intentions of solely changing the timeline might be to set the three ladies as best friends, however, setting up different timelines in the movie can affect the emotional impact of a film as it causes viewers to collide with their own knowledge leading them to become confused and also diminish the key moments as well as the credibility of that film.
The addition of composite characters to display the attitude of white people during the 1940s can be seen in the movie as well. First of all, the character of Al Harrison who is played by Kevin Costner never existed in real life, in fact, the character was based largely on Robert C. Gilruth, the head of the Space Task Group at Langley Research Center. The author of the book Hidden Figures, Margot Lee Shetterly, said that “The organizational structure of the Space Task Group was much more complicated and was changing quickly during the time period when the movie takes place. For clarity in the movie, the management structure is compressed and the composite character Al Harrison was created.” Vivian Mitchell, the unsentimental and strict supervisor to Dorothy Vaughan in the film, was a character full of hostility and is played by Kristen Dunst. The character of Vivian Mitchell greatly illustrates the traits and behaviors of white women toward black people or women during the 1940s; Kristen Dunst did her best to show the prejudice, bias, and ultimate ego that white women in higher positions had against African American women in the same field. If the character of Vivian Mitchell is a symbol of racial bigotry, another composite character in the movie played by Jim Parsons represents both racism and sexism rooted in white people. The character named “Paul Stafford” was the statistician and theorist and it was a blend of a few numbers of white male engineers who worked together with Katherine Johnson during that time. Many fans of the film will agree that Paul Stafford must be the most unbearable character in the film, a privileged white-collar statistician who made Katherine Johnson’s workplace worse than any other person’s. He tried to demote Katherine Johnson to a secretary as he thinks it is not a woman’s job to be a step ahead of men and acting smart, made Katherine omit her name from the important official reports when the lady did almost all the jobs, and lastly, tell Mrs. Johnson that women do not go to space program briefings according to his opinion that important stuff does not belong to women, to be exact, a black woman. Although composite characters can be useful as a storytelling device; they are not as powerful as the producers think to represent significant historical events. This is because unnecessary fictional characters can distort the truth and the experiences of the main figures.
Another shortcoming in this awe-inspiring movie is the overuse of the “white savior trope”. The dramatic toilet-searching scene in the movie was something experienced more by Mary Jackson than Katherine Johnson due to the book. Katherine even did not realize that there were bathrooms exclusively for white employees since there was no indication sign at the restrooms. The research center did have colored bathrooms but there were not many, so, there is no doubt Kathrine Johnson did not notice. The author of the book said that it took a couple of years for Katherine to be confronted for her mistake of using the wrong bathroom, nevertheless, she continued to go to the white-only restroom and Katherine told the author that the case was never brought up again. In the film, Katherine had to run half a mile every day to relieve herself because there was no restroom for black women on the West Campus. The “no-more-white-or-colored-restrooms” scene when Chief Harrison destroyed the “Colored Ladies’ Room” with a crowbar might be the most climactic one in the film. The reason why that scene got criticized is simple; placing the white guy who is “doing the right thing” in the spotlight rather than the protagonist who can clearly speak out and indeed stood up for herself in the movie is indeed questionable. Moreover, when Paul Stafford told Katherine that women do not attend Pentagon meetings as no such protocol exists and there was a tense discussion between the two, Al Harrison was the one who permitted Katherine to listen to the briefings. In spite of Chief Harrison letting Katherine witness John Glenn’s launch in the control room as shown in the film, it did not happen in real life and as a matter of fact, she had to watch the launch in her room from her own television.
Even though there were hints of white people being hero moments in the movie, Theodore Melfi, the screenwriter, and director of Hidden Figures did give some insight into the accusations. His remark shows that he had no issue with the addition of such scenes, “There needs to be white people who do the right thing, there needs to be black people who do the right thing, and someone does the right thing. And so, who cares who does the right thing, as long as the right thing is achieved?” The quote must seem to be true on the surface for some people, however, it was evident that most stories still have to be abided by the “white savior” format of Hollywood productions which was not always completely fair to African Americans. Inserting the “white heroes” in a biographic picture of three African American women rather than trying to make their history reach to the heart of the audiences as much as possible by authenticity is the “colorblindness” of Hollywood. According to author Erin Ash of the article called, “Racial Discourse in the Blind Side: The Economics and Ideology Behind the White Savior Format,” colorblindness is a “subtle, institutional, and apparently non-racial form of racism.” Hollywood loves to give audiences the ideology that white people are determined, ethical, and educated and had to work hard to gain their own success and it is definitely not a systematic privilege. In the article, “Cinethetic Racism: White Redemption and Black Stereotypes in Magical Negro Films,” author Matthew W. Hughey says that “magical negro” films are ones consisting of black characters who have magical or superpowers, have a bond of broken white people and where they try to change their souls. “Magical Negro” films are another instance of Hollywood’s attempt to promote “inclusivity” by casually trying to change the perspectives on black people by arranging unrealistic plots instead of representing more of the actual aspiring people of color. Both “magical negro” and “white savior” films advocate nothing but white supremacy.
To conclude, trying to give another character his own moments might make the film more exciting but what if the filmmakers are going for just another “damsel in distress” cliché stereotype that Hollywood likes to recycle? It is an effort to highlight how black women had to endure a long history of workplace discrimination and sexism in the past, but I believe creating a fictional character to make the film more psychologically attractive is somewhat unnecessary. Instead of delivering a whole new role that did not exist in history and could not support much for the film to the audience, what it lacks in the film is making the most of historically accurate moments fit in the movie. As I mentioned in the introduction, it is a great responsibility for the screenwriters when they must build the plot from historically essential people. This is because there must be a balance between emotions and logic, and it is also essential to carefully capture when touching the sensitivity of history. If one produced those movies just to be more engaging for the viewers in spite of what has happened in real life, then, they have to consider what it must be like for all those people who had to survive till this day to see themselves being sketched from a whole new point of view. Historical accuracies do matter for people with a long history of having to fight to live where they are today, therefore, the picture “Hidden Figures” could have been better if the filmmakers put more effort into designing the film by trying to set up accurate timeline and moments as possible as they can plus reducing of some nonessential blended characters to make the film more attractive.
Works Cited:
Ash, Erin. “Racial Discourse in ‘The Blind Side’: The Economics and Ideology Behind the White Savior Format.” Studies in Popular Culture, vol.38, no.1, 2015, pp. 85-103. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/44259586. Accessed 15 Apr. 2023.
Hughey, Matthew W. “Cinethetic Racism: White Redemption and Black Stereotypes in ‘Magical Negro’ Films.” Social Problems, vol.56, no.3, 2009, pp. 543-577. JSTOR https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/sp.2009.56.3.543. Accessed 15 Apr. 2023.
Hidden Figures. Directed by Theodore Melfi, performances by Taraji P. Henson, Octavia
Spencer, Janelle Monáe, Kevin Costner, Jim Parsons, 20th Century Fox, 2016. Shetterly, Margot Lee. Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the
Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race. Media tie-in ed.
William Morrow Paperbacks. 2016.
Shetterly, Margot Lee. “Dorothy Vaughan Biography.” NASA, 3 Aug. 2017,
https://www.nasa.gov/content/dorothy-vaughan-biography. Accessed 15 Apr. 2023. Shetterly, Margot Lee. “Katherine Johnson Biography.” NASA, 24 Feb. 2020
https://www.nasa.gov/content/katherine-johnson-biography. Accessed 15 Apr. 2023. Shetterly, Margot Lee. “Mary W. Jackson Biography.” NASA, 8 Feb. 2021,
www.nasa.gov/content/mary-w-jackson-biography. Accessed 15 Apr. 2023.
