Hidden Figures

The movie Hidden Figures tells the story of three amazing and intelligent women working at NASA.  Growing up as a black girl, my parents always put up positive role models that looked like me to show that I could do anything I wanted, plastering Mae C. Jemison and Alexa Canady on my walls. I'm lucky to have grown up with my parents and in this era because the women of hidden figures had a completely different experience which is shown in the movie. The expectations and aspirations for these women were so much lower than what they accomplished. Not only did they break through the expectations for black women of their time, but they were questioned at every turn by everyone around them. Everyone around them questioned why they were demanding so much and why they expected to be able to accomplish these things simply because of their physical characteristics. There's one scene in the movie where Katherine Johnson (Henson) is talking to her future husband who says "It's pretty heavy stuff, they let woman handle that sort of thing?". This is just one example of many that shows how generally no one else thought they should be there. Their willingness to not settle for the salary, job, or treatment that they were given is astounding especially when everyone around them was questioning why they weren't content with what they had. The way they broke through those barriers is also extremely admirable. During the presentation, Henson discussed in a video that when she spoke to Johnson about all she had to go through, she just responded "it is what it is, I just did my work", this attitude of working hard and not complaining is what led them to make such great changes.
This amazing story has inspired so many people, but it's sad to think of all the other stories of the accomplishments of different minorities because they will not "box office hits". Henson even said in an interview that the only way to learn about more of these stories is for people to come see it in theaters. I think this is a huge issue because it limits us to an important and relatively unknown history of accomplishments that can be relevant to our lives. Although film is a great way to reach mass audiences, it's not the only way. I think it's interesting but also very sad that stories like Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughn, and Mary Jackson are never discussed in school. I have had twelve years of schooling and throughout all of those years I can't recall a single time (other than Rosa Parks) when I learned about a female minority. I'm sure that there was more than just that one (my memory isn't perfect), but there clearly wasn't enough for me to only remember doing Rosa Parks. This issue is one that I think should get more attention and I'm glad that there are movies like this to shed light on stories like these and to start a discussion about this issue.