Hidden Figures

The film Hidden Figures is an American historical drama, released in 2016, about a real-life team of African American women who worked at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) during the early years of the American space program. The film is loosely based on a book by American author Margot Lee Shetterly that was published in the same year: Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race. Both the book and the film tell the story of the “human computers” who, in the time before digital computation, manually performed the complex calculations needed to plan the trajectories of U.S. spacecraft during the 1960s. Their work was critical to the success of the space program. The film focuses on three of these women—Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan, and Mary Jackson—who were trailblazers for African American women in science and engineering. Hidden Figures was critically acclaimed, garnering three Academy Award nominations, including for best picture. It was also commercially successful, grossing more than $230 million worldwide.

Plot

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Hidden Figures depicts Johnson (initially as the widowed Katherine Goble, played by Taraji P. Henson), Vaughan (Octavia Spencer), and Jackson (Janelle Monáe) working at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. The three are part of a group known as the “West Area Computers,” consisting of college-educated African American women who were segregated under Virginia’s Jim Crow laws on the west side of the Langley campus. The film takes liberties with timelines and events; some are real incidents, while others are fabricated or dramatized to illuminate the challenges that the real-life Johnson, Jackson, and Vaughan faced in their work and their lives. (Notably, for her work in the U.S. space program, Johnson was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2015.)

The three women are all brilliant mathematicians who embark on different career paths. Johnson is assigned to help the Space Task Group, which is engaged in winning the space race against the Soviet Union on behalf of the United States. Headed by the gruff Al Harrison (Kevin Costner), a composite of several real-life NASA management personnel, the Space Task Group is focused on “doing the math” necessary to put astronaut John Glenn (Glen Powell) into orbit around Earth—and bring him safely back home. Jackson is assigned to work with engineers who are testing aircraft prototypes in a wind tunnel. Vaughan has been working as the de facto supervisor of the West Computers for more than a year but has not been officially promoted.

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Johnson, Jackson, and Vaughan navigate many of the same obstacles, including racism and sexism at NASA and in society. Hidden Figures shows the world in which the real-life women lived, with widespread segregation, racist police officers, and inadequate public education for African Americans. Johnson must run to a building some distance away from the Space Task Group’s office just to find a restroom that she is allowed to use. She endures the injustice of not receiving official credit for research reports on which she worked, as well as the racist attitudes of her coworkers, including engineer Paul Stafford (Jim Parsons), another composite character. Meanwhile, Vaughan discovers that racism is the reason why she hasn’t been promoted to supervisor, and Jackson must petition a court to be allowed to take engineering classes at an all-white school.

Hidden Figures shows the women addressing these challenges. When Vaughan finds out that new IBM digital computers will replace the West Computers, she learns how to program the computers and teaches the other women in her group to do the same. (The real-life Vaughan became an expert in FORTRAN, a computer programming language, and NASA’s first African American supervisor.) Jackson gains permission to take classes at the all-white school and becomes NASA’s first African American female engineer, a milestone she achieved in real life. Also reflecting true historical events, Johnson’s work becomes integral to the success of the Mercury spacecraft Friendship 7, in which John Glenn becomes the first U.S. astronaut to orbit Earth on February 20, 1962. Glenn asks for Johnson’s confirmation of the trajectory calculations before agreeing to go ahead with the mission.

The National Board of Review chose Hidden Figures as one of the ten best films of 2016, and the film won several other major awards and nominations.

Production notes and credits

• Studios: Chernin Entertainment, Levantine Films
• Distributor: 20th Century Fox
• Director: Theodore Melfi
• Writers: Allison Schroeder, Theodore Melfi
• Producers: Donna Gigliotti, Peter Chernin, Jenno Topping, Pharrell Williams, Theodore Melfi, Jamal Daniel, Kevin Halloran, Ivana Lombardi, Margot Lee Shetterly, Mimi Valdés, Renee Witt
• Cinematographer: Mandy Walker
• Editor: Peter Teschner
• Music: Hans Zimmer, Pharrell Williams, Benjamin Wallfisch
• Production designer: Wynn Thomas
• Art direction: Missy Parker
• Runtime: 126 minutes

Cast

• Taraji P. Henson (Katherine Johnson)
• Octavia Spencer (Dorothy Vaughan)
• Janelle Monáe (Mary Jackson)
• Kevin Costner (Al Harrison)
• Mahershala Ali (Colonel Jim Johnson)
• Kirsten Dunst (Vivian Mitchell)
• Jim Parsons (Paul Stafford)
• Aldis Hodge (Levi Jackson)
• Glen Powell (John Glenn)
• Kimberly Quinn (Ruth)

Academy Award nominations

• Picture
• Supporting actress (Octavia Spencer)
• Adapted screenplay