Hidden figures to read. The Real History of Hidden Figures

The film will be released on December 25 Hidden figures" - a drama about a team of female mathematicians who are preparing to launch the first US space mission. Life spoke with Janelle Monae, who plays mathematician Mary Jackson.

- I heard, that you really asked to give you the role of Mary Jackson and that you deeply moved by this work?

This is my first job with a big studio, but I didn't ask for anything. Apparently, my work in cinema speaks for itself. When I read the script for Hidden Figures, I immediately saw myself in this role. Mary Jackson fights with great inspiration for her rights and for justice. She seeks respect and the right to realize her dreams, a right that all people have. When I read the script, I immediately sympathized with her both as a woman and as a member of a minority... She is me.

- Tell us about Mary Jackson - what is she like?

Mary is a caring person. She is a realist, but she is not ready to put up with injustice. She knows her worth and will not settle for less, and she is determined to seek justice for herself, for women, for her family and for minorities.

- Who was your role model?, when were you little? And who are you trying to emulate now?

I now strive to emulate these three remarkable women - Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughn and Mary Jackson. I didn't know anything about them before. I don't understand how this could happen. When I studied history in school, the history of blacks in America, their names were never mentioned. These women literally changed the world. If not for their intelligence, if not for their work, the history of America would have been different. When I read the script, I was delighted that after the release of this film, many more people would know about them.

-Mary must have been incredibly determined, since she was able to get her master's degree.I think, we will see it in the film. What tenacity and perseverance she haspossessedA?!

She's fearless. She became the first female engineer at NASA, and that's not even counting the fact that she was black. At that time, it was very difficult for blacks to get an education in Virginia. For a black woman to go to school with white people was unheard of. And yet she moved forward. One day, Mr. Zelinsky, based on the test results, told her that she had the credentials of an engineer, that she should not look for a job, but study to become an engineer. He told her that her abilities were too good to be neglected.

She had to overcome many obstacles. Her husband was against her receiving an education. At that time, women did not earn more than their husbands. They stayed at home, cooked, raised children. She had to overcome the resistance of her husband, who told her that she would never become an engineer, that it was impossible. He convinced her to stop being irrational, he did it out of love for her, out of good intentions. But she decided to listen to her heart. I personally think she may have inherited this fearlessness from her ancestors.

In addition, she was part of the protest movement, in which, in particular, the Black Panthers participated. They fought for their civil rights, which were supposed to be adequate to the rights of whites. And Mary was eager to change the usual state of affairs. And she achieved it. She went to court and eventually achieved that she was allowed to study, however, on the condition that she would attend only evening classes. And so she became an engineer. She worked at NASA for 30 years, where she, among other things, managed to create more equal conditions for women and minorities. She asked her boss childish questions: “I see that this woman is paid less than others. I would like to know why?” She truly did everything she could to help women and minorities.

- Woman, which you play, genius. How did you prepare for this, to play this role?

Do you think I'm not a genius? (laughs). Women like Mary still exist today. But our heroines were like that, despite the very difficult conditions in which they lived. They tried to denigrate women and representatives of minorities, and invented conspiracy theories about African Americans. I think that today we have incredibly smart mathematicians, engineers, etc., but we just don’t talk about them, just like we didn’t talk about these three women. Also, there were other women besides Catherine, Mary and Dorothy who were called computers at the time. The “computers” were white and black, and white women and African-American women did not work together. I say this because all these women were smart, but the blacks were treated like robots.

- How did you prepare for filming?

I don't consider myself a stupid person, so whenever I prepare for a film, I try to find something in common between me and the character. What was she fighting for? How does this relate to my life? What am I fighting for? It came easy to me. I'm telling you, in 1961 I would have been Mary, I wouldn't have let anyone tell me that I wasn't smart enough to be an engineer, that I couldn't go to a white school. I would achieve my goal by any means, I would fight. This is exactly what I do when it comes to music, my art. This is how I prepared for the role.

- Without a doubt, you are very talented and strong-willed, but were you always sure that, that you are on the right track?

Yes, sure. The more obstacles I encountered along the way, the more determined I became. My grandmother lived in Mississippi. When I think about what she had to deal with in the 30s and 40s, and then compare it to my own problems, I realize that I have no choice but to overcome everything that comes my way. My grandmother's generation paved the way for me, they opened doors for me, and I stand on their shoulders, and I feel their spirit in me and move forward. Even now in the film industry, women are paid less than men. Whether we want to discuss it or not, we are still considered a minority and the majority looks down on us, and I am not given the opportunities that are open to members of the majority, so my background obliges me to continue the fight and keep the door open, as my predecessors did .

-Mary has a lot of responsibility, because she isintroducingsubjectnewthgenerationsI, called bring people together different nationalities and skin color. What do you think about it?

This is absolutely true. Mary respects Dorothy, respects Catherine, but she will not accept what these women agreed to at one time, to which they have already become accustomed. She is a participant in the revolution, and her husband is a freedom fighter who takes part in street demonstrations. She really has a lot of responsibility because she belongs to the generation that succeeded Katherine and Dorothy. It was this generation that changed things, as we already know.

- Whatmeans to youthis film and working with other wonderfulAfrican American actresses?

It's amazing. I love Taraji, I love Octavia, we have a sisterly relationship. This is exactly why I love the film - there are good family relationships in it. These three incredible women care about each other, consult with each other, and protect each other. They are real living people, not just "computers" working for NASA. What do you live with when you return home? Katherine is a widow, and her friends encouraged her when she was hesitant to go on a date. Dorothy has six children, and her friends supported her when she and her husband had problems with their children. My heroine and her husband periodically had confrontations, and friendship also helped her out. In short, this is a real sisterly relationship. IN real life we love each other too. They are amazing actresses and free time We're having a wonderful time. We are very comfortable together, we are a real trinity.

- Mary is a real fireworks show. Maybe, does it give you great pleasure to play her?

Yes. This is true. She is me. When I talked to Ted and he said that I am the essence of this character, I thought that I felt that way myself when I read the script, but it's great when the director points out that. I love him very much, he trusts us. He listens to us and approves of our decisions on how to play this or that scene. And this is not surprising - we ourselves are black women, so what we play is not some kind of abstraction for us: we understand how people like us think and experience.

- In film, Maybe, a lot of humor?

Yes, of course, because the main characters of the film are very funny and cheerful. Each in its own way. They solve problems differently, but they have a great sense of humor. So it's no surprise that the film has a lot of cool moments.

- I heard, you love music60s?

Yes, I love this music. The social and political climate was depressing, but the music was amazing. I like Miles Davis and other jazz musicians. For Mary, music was like medicine.

- Tell me about it, How did your character dress?

Mary loves to experiment with her looks, so I had the opportunity to play with fashion, albeit within budget, because Mary herself was on a budget. Luckily, I worked with a great design team. When they asked me to try on a new outfit, it turned out that it fit me so well that there was no need to change anything. This is a high level of professionalism!

- What impact can this film have on thosewho are looking for a role model?

These women changed the world, and I think they will prove to be an inspiration to many, especially those who dream of becoming engineers, scientists, and space explorers. I think it's really important to have more women working in these fields, especially minorities. This is a story in which everyone will find support for themselves.

In the 1960s, the first American astronauts Alan Shepard, Gus Grissom, and John Glenn went into space. Margot Lee Shetterly's book, Invisible Figures: The Story of the African-American Women Who Helped Win the Space Race, and the movie, Hidden Figures, based on the book, pay tribute to the women whose work has remained in the shadows to this day. Behind the scenes of high-profile victories remained work “ people-computers” who manually calculated orbital trajectories at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

In 1935, NASA hired 5 women as “computers” for the first time. It was necessary to solve problems and make calculations by hand, without the use of calculators or computers, which at that time seemed . During World War II there was a great demand for aircrafts, at the same time there were not enough men due to the fact that many went to the front. Were needed.

At that time public figure A. Philip Randolph fought to provide jobs for Jews, African Americans, Mexicans, Poles - groups that were discriminated against. In 1941, US President Franklin Roosevelt signed Executive Order 8802, which prohibited discrimination against employees in the defense industry or government employment on the basis of color, race, religion, or national origin (although it does not specify gender). And six months later, NASA began hiring African-American women with university degrees.

Human computers were not an innovation at all. In the 19th century, women worked as computers at Harvard University and analyzed images of stars. They made a huge contribution to the history of astronomy - Williamina Fleming participated in the development unified system star designations and cataloged 10,000 stars and other objects. Annie Jump Cannon invented the spectral classification we still use today (from cold to hot bodies: O, B, A, F, G, K, M). Dava Sobel in the book “Glass Universe” she wrote that these women were in no way inferior to men in mental abilities, but their working conditions were worse.

“Computers” worked in the Aeronautics Laboratory named after. Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory in Virginia. Even though African American women did the same jobs as white women and men, they were located in the segregated West Wing. “These women were meticulous and precise, and they could be paid little,” said a NASA historian Bill Barry. These women often had to retake courses they had already taken in college and were not considered for promotions at NASA.

But over the years, computers became engineers, managers, and with the help of their work it became possible to send John Glenn into orbital space flight in 1962.

The film “Hidden Figures” is based on real events and tells about the fate of three girls Mary Jackson, Katherine Johnson and Dorothy Vaughan - African-American women who worked as computers in the West Wing of Langley.

Katherine Johnson

(born 1918)

Since childhood, Katherine has demonstrated extraordinary mental capacity- at the age of 14 she graduated high school, and at the age of 18 she received higher education. In 1938, she became one of three African American students (and the only woman) to attend State College West Virginia. In 1953, she began working at NASA, where she subsequently worked for 33 years. Her first big assignment was doing the calculations for Alan Shepard's historic flight in 1961.

Johnson and her team worked to trace Freedom 7's journey in detail from takeoff to landing. It was designed as ballistic flight - in that it was similar to a bullet from a cannon with the capsule rising and falling in a large parabola. Although the flight was considered relatively uncomplicated, it was a huge success and NASA immediately began preparations for America's first orbital mission.

The film mainly focuses on John Glenn's orbital flight, and many of the details, despite the Hollywood script, are historically accurate. For example, Glenn did not entirely trust the computers, and asked Johnson to double-check and confirm the trajectory and entry points: “Let the girl check the numbers. If she says the numbers are okay, I’m ready to fly!”

In 2015, at the age of 97, Katherine received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor in the United States.

Mary Jackson

(1921-2005)

Double-educated in mathematics and science, Mary worked as a teacher, which was considered a rewarding career for many college-educated women at the time. Because most women stayed at home with children or did low-paid jobs. In 1951, she was accepted into NASA. Responsibilities included extracting relevant data from experiments and flight tests.

A few years later, Mary became assistant to the senior aeronautical engineer Kazimierz Czerniecki, who subsequently persuaded her to become an engineer. To qualify, Mary had to take night classes at segregated Hampton High School. She had to petition the city council to gain the right to study on an equal basis with white students. In 1955, Jackson became NASA's first female engineer.

In addition to performing job responsibilities, Katherine supported her colleagues in their pursuit of career success, because sometimes women lacked self-confidence or needed additional education. According to a biography on NASA's website, Mary inspired many to advance in their careers.

Dorothy Vaughan

(1910-2008)

At NASA, Dorothy was a respected mathematician, FORTRAN programmer, and the first African-American woman administrator. Her career began as a mathematics teacher, and in 1943, during World War II, Dorothy joined the Langley Laboratory in a temporary position. But thanks to Executive Order 8802, which prohibited discrimination, Dorothy was lucky enough to stay with NASA, as there was a high demand for specialists who could process information. But women of color worked separately from their white colleagues, and the first leaders were also white women. After Dorothy became a manager, she evaluated the career advancement and salary increases of her subordinates based on merit. Vaughan became a FORTRAN programming expert and contributed to the launch of the Scout satellite launch vehicle while juggling work and raising six children.

According to the writer Margot Lee Shetterly, these women did work that had not been done before by not just a single African-American woman, but generally no one on this planet. Shatterly's father worked for NASA, so it wasn't unusual for her to see what women contributed huge contribution in the development of space exploration. To write the book, Margot Lee interviewed Katherine Johnson and other employees. They were very surprised by the writer's desire to tell this story, because they did not think that anyone would be interested in it. The book and film inspire more women to not be afraid to follow their dreams and remember: genius has no race, strength has no gender, courage has no limits.

On the eve of Gagarin's flight, black female mathematicians Katherine Johnson (Taraji P. Hanson), Dorothy Vaughan (Octavia Spencer) and Mary Jackson (Janelle Monae) work at a NASA center in Virginia. Since this is a segregated southern state, the heroines have to endure all sorts of humiliations related to their skin color. Dorothy is not promoted even though she actually supervises the "colored" calculations, Mary is unable to attend advanced training courses at the "white" college, and Catherine is forced to run to another building to relieve herself because her planning team is in the building where she works. flights, there are no “colored” toilets. Nevertheless, women faithfully serve the common cause. Their achievements begin to be noticed only when Gagarin's flight puts NASA under time pressure and the authorities have no time left to maintain racial discrimination.

Katherine Johnson is the only character in the film who is still alive.

According to the famous black comedian Whoopi Goldberg, she was amazed to the core when, as a girl in 1966, she saw her on the TV series “ Star Trek» Nichelle Nichols as Communications Officer on spaceship. For the first time in her life, she saw on the screen a woman of her skin color who was engaged in a prestigious job, and not busy in the kitchen or sweeping the floor. Caryn Johnson (real name Goldberg) did not even suspect that by that time one of the leading mathematicians at NASA was her fellow tribesman and namesake, Katherine Johnson. Instead of glorifying Katherine and her group as role models for new generations of “colored” American women, the government suppressed their achievements. Years passed before the names of these women became widely known, even in the narrow circles of space enthusiasts.

Still from the film "Hidden Figures"

The film is based on the non-fiction book by Margot Lee Shetterly. The writer's father was a NASA scientist, and from childhood she knew many of the heroines of her future work.

St. Vincent director Theodore Melfi's second feature is intended to highlight black women mathematicians and give them the respect they deserve. This is not a psychological drama that delves into the spiritual subtleties of women of the past, but almost like the lives of saints, which admires the talent, drive and enterprise of the main characters.

Still from the film "Hidden Figures"

True, the film was shot in a tragicomic vein, and the heroines sometimes look ridiculous. But this absurdity is due to the insane rules that are imposed on the heroines. Let's say Katherine has to trot to the toilet with an armful of papers, because the trip back and forth takes more than half an hour, and no one will do a woman's work for her. Dorothy is forced to steal a book on programming from the library, since books from the “white” department are not given to blacks, and the “colored” department does not have the necessary manual. So when the film puts the heroines in stupid situations, it is not mocking them, but rather racism, the representatives of which are shown with much less sympathy. Katherine's direct boss, played by Jim Parsons, is petty and nasty, and Kirsten Dunst plays Dorothy's boss as a prim "Southern lass" who can express all her contempt for the descendants of her family's slaves with one curl of her lips.

Still from the film "Hidden Figures"

Fortunately, Hanson and Spencer are talented character actresses, and their flamboyance is more than enough to turn the "statue saints" into lively, entertaining women who are fun to root for no matter what they do. Monáe copes with this task worse, since she is more traditionally beautiful, but her role is less significant than that of her partners. Besides, no movie has ever suffered from a sexy mathematician with smart eyes. And, by the way, although Monáe is primarily known as a pop-funk performer, she never gives any doubt that she belongs in a movie where she doesn’t have to sing or dance provocatively.

It’s clear that in Russia we don’t really care about who calculated the orbits of the first American manned flights and programmed the first American powerful computers. But Hidden Figures is valuable and interesting because it reflects how legal and pervasive racism was in the United States just half a century ago. It is impossible to understand current American tensions without such history lessons, and Hidden Figures also portrays Americans in the unusual role of catching up and never catching up (the flight to the moon remains outside the scope of the story). So the tape greatly amuses our national pride and at the same time tells a positive, sometimes very funny and quite universal story about people who defend their rights not with rallies and idle talk, but with such impeccable work that even their personal enemies by the end of the film reluctantly recognize their contribution to astronautics. Although the heroines do not need recognition - they know their worth.

A long time ago, even before the advent of computers, humanity still needed to solve complex computing problems. And there was no other option but to gather people, organize them into a team and let them calculate this task manually. Such people were called calculator; they calculated navigation problems, trigonometric tables and tables of logarithms, strength of materials and much more. Calculators, or rather calculators, because in the 20th century the majority of them were women, provided atomic, missile and space programs on both sides of the ocean. And now, on the eve of the International women's day, I would like to remind you of one interesting film showing forgotten pages of the history of computer technology and astronautics.

Based on real events

Actors and prototypes

The plot of the film is based on the real biographies of three African-American women who worked at NASA.

Katherine Johnson(Katherine Johnson). Born August 26, 1918 in White Sulfur Springs, West Virginia. Since childhood, she has proven herself to be a brilliant mathematician. She was one of the three (and the only woman) of the first African Americans admitted to the best university state, but after getting married, she left the first year. She gave birth to three children. She began working as a calculator at the Langley Research Center in 1953. In 1956, her husband died of cancer, and she married a second time in 1959. In 1957, she performed calculations for the work “Notes on Space Technologies,” based on lectures by engineers of the flight study groups and unmanned vehicles. These engineers became the backbone of the Space Task Force, and Katherine joined it as well. In 1960, she became the first female co-author of a document describing orbital calculations celestial body taking into account the landing point (it is now available on the NASA website). Performed calculations for the first US manned missions, the Apollo and Space Shuttle flights. She retired from NASA in 1986. In 2015, she received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor in the United States.

Mary Jackson(Mary Jackson). Born April 9, 1921. After receiving her bachelor's degree, she worked as a mathematics teacher, but, having changed several professions, in 1951 she ended up in the group of calculators in the Western region of NACA. In 1953, she moved to the department working with the supersonic wind tunnel. In 1958, she became the first African American female engineer at NASA. She had a brilliant engineering career, but, having hit a glass ceiling, she could not rise higher to the level of manager, so in 1979 she was demoted to the Federal Women's Program at Langley Center, where she recruited and promoted the next generation of women engineers at NASA. She left in 1985. She was married and gave birth to two children. She died on February 11, 2005.

Dorothy Vaughn(Dorothy Vaughan). Born September 20, 1910 in Kansas City, Missouri. She got married in 1932 and gave birth to six children. She worked as a mathematics teacher. In 1943, two years after President Roosevelt's Order 8802, which prohibited racial, ethnic and religious discrimination in the defense industry, she took what she thought was a temporary job at Langley as a calculator processing aerodynamics data. She worked in a specially created segregated group of accountants in the Western region, which included only non-white employees. In 1949, she became team leader, the first African American and one of the few women in this position. When NACA was transformed into NASA in 1958, the segregation of calculation groups was abolished, and a new Analysis and Computation Division was formed without division by skin color. When computers appeared at NASA, she became a FORTRAN programmer and participated in the Scout rocket program. She retired from NASA in 1971 and died on November 10, 2008.

Materiel and physics

Despite the fact that NASA participated in the creation of the film, alas, technical side shown so-so, with rather serious mistakes. One can forgive the incorrect display of the flight direction, separation cyclogram and operation of the third stage of the Soviet Vostok launch vehicle, but offensive errors are also visible during the display American technology. The biggest is the fictitious tail section of the Redstone launch vehicle.

Still from the film

The filmmakers clearly got confused in the design of the rockets, because the tail section with two engines is separated not from Redstone, but from the Atlas launch vehicle. Her flight is also in the film, but for some reason they show documentary footage of the separation of the second stage of the Titan-2 launch vehicle, which launched the next generation ships, Gemini.

Also, the importance of maximizing precise definition Mercury landing area. In reality, rescue services were deployed over a fairly large area in case of unpleasant surprises, and astronaut Carpenter’s miss four hundred kilometers from the calculated point did not prevent him from being found after just about an hour.

At the same time, the story of the calculations for John Glenn's flight is real. Often the first computers froze and crashed, they were not very trusted, and Glenn personally asked Katherine Johnson to manually carry out calculations using the same formulas and data. "If she says it's okay, I'm ready to go," Glenn said. The results of computer and human calculations coincided.

In a scene captioned "Redstone Drone Tests," more missiles explode. Also, Glenn’s flight was not shortened; he flew off the planned three orbits. The phrase “you have a go at least 7 orbits”, actually spoken in reality, does not mean permission to fly seven orbits, but that the orbit after separation from the rocket is high enough, and there is no need to urgently land on the first or second orbit so as not to bury yourself into the atmosphere in a random place. And, finally, the American Mission Control Center was physically unable to track the first minutes of Gagarin’s flight in real time, receiving telemetry from the rocket, and the mission diagram there is shown for Mercury, but not Vostok.

A little splint

Some events in the film were compressed and re-dramatized to create a single and cohesive picture. In fact, some episodes occurred at a different time or were absent from reality.

The film takes place in 1961-1962. In reality, there have been no segregated accounting units since 1958, when NACA was transformed into NASA. The Analysis and Calculations Division, where the heroines worked, was racially integrated.

Overall, the time in the film was compressed, and organizational structure NASA - simplified. The fictional Al Harrison combined the head of the Space Working Group, Robert Gilruth, and the flight director, Chris Craft.

The story of having to run far to use a segregated toilet is distorted and exaggerated. In reality, it was not Katherine who faced a similar problem, but Mary. Katherine used unmarked toilets for years until someone noticed. And even after a dissatisfied person was found, she ignored the complaint and continued to use the same toilet room. In an interview, the real Katherine said that she did not feel segregation at NASA. “Everyone was busy researching. You had a task and you did your job. Well, I also played bridge during my lunch break. I knew there was segregation, but I didn’t feel it,” Katherine said.

And the plot device of dismantling the “whites only” sign using improvised means not only did not happen in reality, but even became a reason to condemn the film - some critics saw in it a “white savior” template, something completely opposite to the spirit of the film.

Mary Jackson did not have to go to court to obtain higher education. In reality, she applied to the mayor's office for a special permit and received it.

Mercury flights were controlled by the control center not at Langley, but at Cape Canaveral. Houston's Mission Control Center began working only on the Gemini missions.

Actors

Personally, I have almost no complaints about the acting, with one exception. Jim Parsons' character looks like Sheldon has been transported back in time, and this somewhat detracts from the overall effect. I would like to hope that in future films he will be able to break out of this image.

The actors were chosen well, except that Glenn, in my opinion, looks bad, but these are minor things.

On the other side of the ocean

In Soviet memoirs you can find references to our female accountants who did the same work. It is curious that Boris Khristoforov in his memoirs “Memoirs of a Physics Engineer” writes that the calculation workers received higher awards than the participants in atomic tests. Georgy Mikhailovich Grechko, the future cosmonaut, supervised the calculations and recalls how, when calculating the trajectory of the rocket to launch the first satellite, he had to switch from Bradis tables (you could still find them at school) to more accurate Khrenov tables. Electromechanical calculating machines were not able to calculate trigonometric functions, and the fourth digit affected the result - the rocket began to oscillate, then lifting its nose, then lowering it below the horizon. Forced to do more calculations, the calculators rebelled, and the issue was resolved at a trade union meeting, at which they were convinced that calculations using Bradis tables, suitable for military missiles, were no longer suitable here. Calculator and calculator are also mentioned in the book “Space Begins on Earth” by B.A. Pokrovsky.

Conclusion

Despite some popular prints and inaccuracies that could have been avoided, the film is recommended for viewing and is valuable for its story about interesting episodes from the history of astronautics, computer technology and the life of American society.

After the space launches of Sputnik, dogs and the dummy of Ivan Ivanovich, NASA, like a real zombie, reached out to its women of color with a guttural groan: “Brains, we need brains!” Because there was a categorically urgent need for intellectual resources, but the brain different people colored the same (and if suddenly someone has brown matter in their head instead of white, it doesn’t depend on skin color).

Almost two centuries ago, the world's first programmer was Ada Lovelace, a gifted mathematician, daughter of the poet George Byron; Charles Babbage's Analytical Engine had not yet been built (even a working model was constructed only half a century after Lady Lovelace's death), but the Countess had already written a program for it. During World War II, the women who worked on Alan Turing's Bomb and Colossus codebreaking machines were essentially part of the computer. Another ten years later, “living computers” worked at NACA, which later turned into NASA - one of the heroines of the biographical “Hidden Figures” was so nicknamed for the speed and accuracy of calculations. And the other heroine, when real computers - monstrous IBMs - were brought to replace her mathematics department, she retrained as a programmer, and on her own, secretly and semi-legally, with elements of theft and unauthorized entry. Desperate times call for desperate measures! Some people found themselves forced to cooperate with those with whom it was painful for them to sit next to and drink from the same coffee pot; others are not running a simple career race, but with constantly added obstacles and a delayed finish. Inside the space race, there was another one - a career-social one.

Despite all the obstacles that the protagonists had to jump over and climb on the way to their goal, the film turned out to be neither tear-jerking nor even particularly moralizing. On the contrary, it encourages, encourages you to actively root for the heroines and not give up, and also gives many reasons for fun: just look at the aphoristic remarks or the Soviet poster with Nikita Khrushchev “To work, comrades!” hanging in the main mathematics department of NASA. Universality is also present, the authors made the film not for two groups of the American population, saying: “We sympathize with you - but let you be ashamed, ashamed, ashamed!”, but for the whole world. Almost any newcomer who gets a job in a not very friendly team can try on the problems of heroines. And for greater clarity, the authors introduced a toilet joke (in the literal sense) - more precisely, a half-joking, half-serious disclosure of segregation using the example of a toilet. Because not everyone can relate to a mathematical problem, but anyone can relate to a toilet problem. The joke went on for quite some time, and the method wasn’t all that subtle - but it worked.

What else is close to people around to the globe? Romantic stories. It was impossible to make a film about women without a love story. For the sake of tender feelings, the plot redrawn the facts and tied them in knots. The problem is not even sweetness, but the fact that the film, which talks, among other things, about the importance of accurate calculations, cheats with numbers - dates and ages. And she does it with the grace of pimping friends - that is, zealously and almost openly. In reality, career and matrimonial successes were achieved years before John Glenn's flight; in the film this is the first one for American astronauts orbital flight acts as the axis of rotation to which everything else is pulled, and forty-year-old Glenn himself is played by a handsome twenty-seven-year-old. The children of the heroines are also rejuvenated: instead of healthy foreheads, cute babies are shown. In addition to emotion, the suspense was artificially intensified: yes, the astronauts did not really trust computer calculations, because they were still new, and glitches and bugs sometimes happened, so Glenn actually asked a female mathematician to double-check everything the old fashioned way - but not before the launch .

In a word, the authors did not skimp on plot compactors and artistic decorations of reality. Catching them red-handed undermines the credibility of the story as a whole - but it is still true: Dorothy Vaughan, Mary Jackson, Katherine Johnson actually existed, Johnson is still alive. Each of them became the first in their own way - and without giving up “classical” values ​​like marriage and motherhood for this, but combining everything with the dexterity of a circus juggler. One such heroine could still be considered a rare exception - but together they form a system. The color constellation is not discriminatory, but in the literal sense of the word: it is not without reason that the multi-colored outfits, warm colors and even the white and turquoise car of the heroines stand out against the muted gray-metallic background of the “white” part of NASA. But you can’t hide something truly bright.

After centuries of slavery and discrimination, the pendulum swung to the other extreme, this is reflected in cinema: not only have there become more colored, female and non-traditionally oriented characters, but often already established images undergo a change in color, gender, and orientation. Such operations, instead of increasing tolerance, risk causing a “reverse” effect. But “Hidden Figures” takes a different path and shows not the replacement of one repression by another, but unification: connections of mutual understanding and cooperation are established between a white astronaut and a colored mathematician, a white boss and a colored subordinate, a white judge and a colored plaintiff, white female mathematicians and colored women -mathematicians, and so on. The film reminds us that races are not individual, but team and mixed. And that the desire to see the invisible, to look beyond, to be first does not depend on gender or skin color.

Well, a bonus for fans of Soviet cosmonautics: of course, the first of the “red” team are shown - repeatedly and with documentary footage. After all, what better motivates you to defeat yourself and jump above your head than competition with a strong opponent? It is quite fair that the story of cosmic and near-cosmic firsts includes not only Dorothy Vaughan, Mary Jackson, Katherine Johnson, John Glenn, Alan Shepard, but also Yuri Gagarin, Ivan Ivanovich and Chernushka. And whoever disagrees is a malicious film-phobe and a violator of the rights of mannequins, that’s right.