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| See - the tagline is right there. |
Certainly, this isn't a story that I've heard of before and it is one worth telling. It tells us of how far we've come in some ways, and how far we still have to go. We're introduced to three women who travel to work together in NASA, and the various small battles they encounter everyday because of the colour of their skin.
Katherine (Taraji P. Henson) works as a computer (interesting historical detail - a "computer" used to be a job title. As in, one who computes) in NASA, assigned to a Space Task Group and working with Al Harrison (Kevin Costner, reprising his role as man wearing white shirt in a government job) and Paul Stafford (Jim Parsons, might as well be reprising his role as Sheldon Cooper). Although she is assigned because of her competence, she is the only woman in the room, and the only person who is not white. There are variations on ignorance from the men she works with. It has not occurred to anyone that the only bathroom she is permitted to use is in a building half a mile away ("we all pee the same colour at NASA" an exasperated Harrison comments when he is made aware of the issue). But there is a pointed nastiness when a second coffeepot is produced on her second day, with a label "colored" affixed to it. Katherine's work is accepted, but from a distance, and as long as she doesn't touch anything. Katherine's scenes are initially played for laughs as she runs backwards and forwards to the bathroom, but when she grows tired of the constant small barbs, and calls out the perpetrators (both the well-meaning and the malicious), her words cut deeply. A small moment which goes uncommented upon is when Katherine is called across campus (to the building where her bathroom is located), escorted by one of her younger male counterparts. She runs in heels, holding an armful of files, effortlessly. Her escort, in flat shoes and unencumbered, is winded halfway through the journey - a visual representation of the maxim that you will understand someone better when you've walked a mile in their shoes.
Katherine is a real, still-living person, who is currently 98, and recently received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Obama. It's worth reading more about her. You can start here:
Dorothy (Octavia Spencer), is a mathematician, working as a supervisor for the "Coloured Campus" at NASA, but denied the title and pay because of her colour. Shrewdly noting that IBM computers are coming to NASA, and realising that one machine that can do 24,000 calculations a second will shortly render all in her department obsolete, she learns FORTRAN (an early programming language) and begins teaching it to all in her campus, thus securing their future employment.
Here is some information about Dorothy Vaughan:
Mary (Janelle Monae) is encouraged to become an engineer - an idea that is unheard of for women, let alone black women. In order to take the necessary classes, she must first petition the courts to allow her to attend a "white-only" school.
Information about Mary Jackson can be found here: |
| Dorothy, Katherine and Mary (l-r) in real life |
Throughout, there are scenes of the women in their lives outside of work, where they are wives, mothers, girlfriends, members of the public. Those roles are also tainted by the segregation of the country.
This film is fab. It's inspiring, uplifting, and surprisingly feel-good and funny given the subject matter. It is also a pointed reminder of what humanity has come from relatively recently, and what we could be capable of again, given certain conditions. It shows that we can simultaneously be progressive and reductive. It also shows that progress comes in lots of small but significant ways - the man who holds a door open for Katherine, the colleague who makes her a coffee, the person who lends her his phone at a point of crisis, the supervisor who addresses Dorothy as an equal. It also shows how tenuously any "-ism" is built, the danger of not challenging things because "that's how they've always been", and how quickly an "-ism" can be overcome (for example, when Al Harrison lets Katherine into the daily briefings, because it makes more sense to keep her up to date with the calculations that have to be made).
It's a film that shows how great people can be.
It's a film that shows how stupid people can be.
Additional thoughts, comments and questions:
- It's unclear to me why NASA hired so many highly skilled black staff, and then put so many restrictions on them.
- In an interesting twist from the norm, the white people in this film are little more than ciphers. Jim Parsons, Kirsten Dunst and, arguably, Kevin Costner are poorly served by an otherwise cracking story, and I would have liked to have understood their points of view and actions a little better, especially after such a throwaway line between Dunst and Spencer ("You know, I really don't have any issue with any of you people." "Yes ma'am. I think you honestly believe that").
- I really like films that can take complicated and unfathomable (to me) topics and make them matter. I have no idea what any of the calculations in this film mean, but I do understand that if they don't get it right, John Glenn will die in space, and this will be bad. Well, fair enough then.
- Part of the reason that would be particularly bad is because John Glenn gets some small but significant scenes in this film. One of which is when he specifically asks Katherine to check all the figures, because no one entirely trusts the IBM computer calculations. How times have changed.
- Octavia Spencer for Best Supporting Actress Oscar winner, please.
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