Hidden Figures

Hidden Figures is a 2016 film based on the true stories of Katherine Gobel, Mary Jackson and Dorthy Vanburgh. The film is set in Virginia, where NASA’s research center is based, and takes place during 1961-1962. The film critiques the discriminatory laws of the time. With segregation and intolerable prejudice being the norm, Hidden Figures ridicules the way things were in an upbeat, powerful new approach to American counter history. The purpose of the film is to engage in the equal rights conversation that started very long ago. Hidden Figures sets to remind us, that history often doesn’t show the full story, and that we need be more mindful of how we approach history going forward. By using implied visual logic and emotional appeals, the

Virgina still had segregated schools at the time, and although Jackson was qualified, in order to become an engineer, she needed these classes to meet the new requirements. However, there were no black schools in Virginia that had the required classes. These women were victims of society but they did not play the victim role, these women were very powerful and extremely talented. As Jackson testifies before the judge, she acknowledges the importance of determination, and even when the odds are stacked up in opposite favor, there is still a sense of pride to overcome it. Jackson was great at demonstrating her values, and percerverience about the issue, and she does this by appealing to the judges personal values. She did previous research on the judge, and was able to relate her struggles to his own previous ones and this is done by declaring the “importance of being first.” Jackson points out to the judge that he was the first person in his family to attend school, he was the first person to ----- and Virgina was the first state to ------ by his own appeal. She uses the cold war and the heightened sense of of Nationalism that united people of that time. America was trying desperately to become the first country to launch a man into the space, and she was a part of that vision. By being the great speaker that Jackson was she was able to

The film takes place at NASA, so there is a lot of “sciencey” things going on throughout, and the advancement of technology is shown with the creation of the IBM. With the advancement of technology, the human computers ran the risk of loosing their jobs to todays modern computers, so to ensure that they were useful, Vanburgh learned to program the IBM faster than the engineers who built the machine knew how to program it. By breaking into restricted areas at NASA, and a bit of research Vanburgh was able to stay ahead of technology and demonstrate her usefulness to the team. IBM stands for -----, it is a machine with the ability to solve ----- problems per minute, making human computers obsolete. On one hand this is great for the advancement of the country, but it also renders a couple hundred Americans jobless. Not only was Vanburgh, fighting for her own job, but she also fought for her colleagues as well. She taught everyone in the west corridor computing group (the colored computers) how to program the machine as well. With her advancement, she was able to fight for her entire team’s advancement to follow with her into the