By: Michelle Maurer
On January 8, SWE-KC members met to watch one of the first showings of the movie, “Hidden Figures”. The movie, based on Margot Lee Shetterly’s book of the same title, presents the story of three African American women working at NASA in Hampton, Virginia in 1962 when John Glenn became the first American to orbit the Earth. The three brilliant and ambitious women portrayed had to fight their way into a white man’s world to use their mathematical, computational, and engineering skills within the NASA environment. As a 56-yr-old engineer, I could relate to some of the situations where the women were mistaken for non-professionals. As the movie progressed, I became so proud of these women that made a break-through for not only women, but African Americans in the predominately white-collar, white work world. The other movie-goers felt the same pride as many gave a round of applause at the end of the movie even though there were no live actors in the audience. Many of us have done our own fact checking and have not found anything factually inaccurate, although the author of the inspiring book noted that, “They really did a big Hollywood rollicking adventure," suggesting some creative liberties were taken in making the movie. The central character, Katherine Johnson, is said to have seen the movie and liked it. It is a great movie for history buffs, women, African Americans, other minorities, and anyone looking for inspiration under intimidating circumstances.
On January 8, SWE-KC members met to watch one of the first showings of the movie, “Hidden Figures”. The movie, based on Margot Lee Shetterly’s book of the same title, presents the story of three African American women working at NASA in Hampton, Virginia in 1962 when John Glenn became the first American to orbit the Earth. The three brilliant and ambitious women portrayed had to fight their way into a white man’s world to use their mathematical, computational, and engineering skills within the NASA environment. As a 56-yr-old engineer, I could relate to some of the situations where the women were mistaken for non-professionals. As the movie progressed, I became so proud of these women that made a break-through for not only women, but African Americans in the predominately white-collar, white work world. The other movie-goers felt the same pride as many gave a round of applause at the end of the movie even though there were no live actors in the audience. Many of us have done our own fact checking and have not found anything factually inaccurate, although the author of the inspiring book noted that, “They really did a big Hollywood rollicking adventure," suggesting some creative liberties were taken in making the movie. The central character, Katherine Johnson, is said to have seen the movie and liked it. It is a great movie for history buffs, women, African Americans, other minorities, and anyone looking for inspiration under intimidating circumstances.
RSS Feed
