Hidden Figures (5 Stars)

"Here at NASA we all pee the same colour".

This year a film will be released called "First Man". It's a sequel to the 2016 film "Hidden Figures", but I doubt it will be of the same quality. Sequels are rarely as good as the original film, and it doesn't have any actors of the quality of Janelle Monae, Taraji Henson and Octavia Spencer. I'll go to see it as soon as I have a chance and I'll tell you what I think. I  might change my mind.

"Hidden Figures" tells the true story of the women who worked at NASA in the American space programme. It was a terrible setback to American pride when a Russian, Yuri Gagarin, became the first man in space. America wanted to equal this feat and go on to travel to the Moon. The film follows the struggles needed to make John Glenn the first American to orbit the Earth.

The three women at the centre of the story, Katherine Goble, Dorothy Vaughan and Mary Jackson, had to struggle against the prejudices of the 1960's. They had two sets of prejudices to deal with: they were black (usually called "coloured") and they were women. Don't think that prejudice is a white prerogative. The black men around them didn't think they were capable of working at NASA because they were only women.

The inefficiency at NASA was so bad that it was comical. They ordered a computer from IBM, and it had to be left in the hallway because it was too big to go through the door. After knocking down the wall with a sledgehammer and putting the parts together it stood unused because nobody knew what to do with it. What I mean is, the white men at NASA didn't know what to do with it. Dorothy Vaughan was smarter. She went to the library to borrow a book about Fortran. The library was divided into two halves, books for white people and books for coloured people. The book on Fortran was only in the white section and she wasn't allowed to borrow it, so she stole it. She was the first person at NASA capable of programming the computer, and she went on to teach the other coloured women at NASA programming skills.

Not everyone was prejudiced. Al Harrison, the head of the Space Task Group, didn't care about the gender or skin colour of his team as long as they got the work done. He expressed his anger at his team when they made it difficult for Katherine to do her work. He respected Katherine for her intelligence and hard work. That was all that mattered.

This is an amazing film about women overcoming seemingly insurmountable obstacles. It should be an encouragement to anyone who's a woman or black or both. Don't waste time protesting. Just knuckle down and prove to everyone that you're just as good as them, maybe even better. In the end your quality as a worker and a human being will triumph.

Success Rate:  + 7.4

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