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Sunday, January 29, 2017

HIDDEN FIGURES: To Them Who Were Untold by History

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Hidden Figure is not a movie that full of bangs and explosions. It's not a blockbuster movie that full of CGI and epic battle. Even it centers on NASA, math and engineering, it doesn’t have a knotty and complicated story about numbers and relativity theory. It is telling story of three black scientists who are struggling to seek justice in oppressive realm of work that is separating white and colored people. This condition is sharpened by the reality that they are women. Not as many movies that bring this racism theme, there are neither opened fights nor aggressive conflicts. They just did their job and face the challenge of being black woman.



Even it is labelled as based on true story, don’t try so hard to find the real event in American history that is portrayed precisely. Because this movie isn’t telling about the real occurrence despite of the experience. This movie wants to show us that many black people’s roles are hidden in American history, just because of they are black and they are not Martin Luther King or Jimmy Lee Jackson. That’s why the three main characters are real, but some others, even the key character, such as Al Harrison (Kevin Costner), are fabricated to emphasize the experience during that time. For some people it may be cringe worthy, but for me that’s one of the reason that make this subtler and more powerful. Because even the characters are fictional, actually they are based on real persons. Just like we suddenly identify Miranda Priestly in Devil Wears Prada as Anna Wintour.

Those three women are Katherine G. Johnson (Taraji P. Henson), Dorothy Vaughan (Octavia Spencer), and Mary Jackson (Janelle Monáe). Three intelligent engineering and mathematician who are close friend to each other and brilliant in their own difference terrain at NASA. Their mission is simple, to bring American astronaut, John Glenn, out of space and projecting to go to the moon in near time. Within this setting we are presented by a story how each character is restricted to access the same opportunity as white. Katherine couldn’t have the same bathroom and coffee jar as other that make her had to go over half a mile just to go to bathroom, Dorothy couldn’t be supervisor, and Mary couldn’t be engineering of the NASA's rocket because of the school for engineering is only for white men. They are great in performance, but their nature had been seen as their sin.

1960s is a hard time for black people. Their job is limited strictly to colored section. As we saw in American history of discrimination, we also see divided restroom, school, library, church, television, and many other things like that in this movie. But somehow, they can make us feel that they don’t intend to show us the distinctive, we just see it genuinely frame by frame. In this kind of movie, we’ve been usually served by antagonist characters that become their villains, but in this movie the real enemy is the discriminating culture itself. Many smart white people in NASA aren't served as devils who hate those black women, they’re just victims of injustice culture they lived. And I think it’s a very smart move, make this movie doesn’t felt pretentious. And don’t you think it is happen all the time in our daily life, we are not facing bad people, but we have to stand against harsh culture among us.

But at the same time, this movie is so heart-warming, the black people don’t struggle by themselves. They’ve been helped by many great people there, John Glenn himself, Al Harrison the head of Langley’s, the head engineer where Mary works, so is the judge. There are some moments of this movie that will be eternal. Such as the time Al Harrison destroying colored woman restroom sign in front of his employees and shout loud “Here at NASA we all pee the same color!” or Mary statement before the judges, “I plan on being an engineer at NASA, but I can't do that without taking them classes at that all-white high school, and I can't change the color of my skin. So I have no choice, but to be the first, which I can't do without you, sir. Your honor, out of all the cases you gon hear today, which one is gon matter hundred years from now? Which one is gon make you the first?” This movie has many of those enchanting moments.

The entire movie sends a clear message: when it comes to driving for success and performance, neither skin color nor gender should matter. We need to be united. Differences actually are made by our culture, but we are able to choose another way: gather and integrate all the differences to better purpose. Since injustice is coming along with history of mankind and civilization, when we focus on diversity, justice apparently emerges. So is for some people injustice maybe  natural, yet comforting, at its very surface. But at the moment we see its true color and dig deep into our very heart of consciousness, soon we have no choice but to get rid it of. And there where humanity comes. There where life begins.

PS: Many people do believe in Apollo 11 Mission to the moon, but many others are thinking it is a conspiracy theory. I am among those who believe.

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