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#ZOOMIN: Hidden figures

Nada Khaled Mansour

Directed by Thoedore Melfi, “Hidden Figures” is an American film that narrates the story of Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan and Mary Jackson.


Since they were little, they have shown an inclination for scientific subjects, and now, the three of them work at the West Area Computers of Hampton. Katherine, Dorothy and Mary have very different dreams and ambitions, but also one thing in common: they are black and they are women.


The difficulties that the three women have to face are diverse and demanding: they have, first of all, to fight in order to obtain the job they are aiming to, they have to fight to gain the respect from their colleagues, to gain credibility, which is fundamental in an environment such as the one they are living in, and lastly to be considered equal, to have the same rights.


The most memorable scenes are without doubt the ones that highlight the obstacles that Katherine has to face from the moment she joins the Space Task Group: from the different coffee thermos because her colleagues don’t want to drink the same coffee as a black woman, to the incommunicability and indifference that make difficult not only the possibility to build personal relationship, but also the success of her work.


Whoever has watched “Hidden Figures” surely can’t forget the so-called bathroom scene, where the nearest bathroom for black women is in a different department, kilometres away from where Katherine works and everyday she has to run all her way there just to use it.


However, Katherine is not the only one that has to run an obstacle race to reach the finish line, but also Dorothy and Mary have often found themselves in front of challenges that would’ve meant the surrender of the most, but not of such capable and determined women. This sentiment, their grit is perfectly expressed in the speech Mary pronounced in front of the judge in order to have the possibility to become for all intents and purposes an engineer and work for NASA.

“Your honour, you of all people should understand the importance of being first. […] And I sir, I plan on being an engineer at NASA, but I can’t do that without taking them classes at that all-white high school and I can’t change the colour of my skin. So I have no choice but to be the first.”

If Katherine represents the academic intelligence and Mary the grit and determination, Dorothy represents without doubt the ability to constantly reinvent herself, to adapt her skills to progress and keep up with the changing times. Miss Vaughan was part of the sector dedicated to calculations, destined to extinction after the arrival of computers. To avoid being unemployed and to safeguard the job of her team, Dorothy studied coding and, after gaining knowledge of the subject, she educated her colleagues. This allowed her team to be promoted and to become computer supervisors.


Hidden Figures” is a movie that everyone should watch, a movie that has the ability to open the spectator’s eyes about all the hurdles women, in particular black women, had to face, all the fights they had to deal with just to obtain the respect and the esteem they always deserved. It is also a movie that comforts, that brings to light all the steps that have been made, in particular for the black community and for all the women in science.


Katherine, Dorothy and Mary were three great women that deserve a movie dedicated to them, but mostly they deserve a place in everybody’s memory. The trajectories traced by Katherine for the Mercury program and the mission Apollo 11 were fundamental in order to allow every little boy or little girl to look at the sky, see the moon and dream to, one day, set foot there.

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