Social Psychology in Hidden Figures
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Social Psychology in Hidden Figures
Hidden figures are a movie that provides a series of emotions and leaves its viewers more empowered as it comprises of all the saddening, enriching, amusing and uplifting elements all at once. The film gives a monumental story of three African-American female physicists and mathematicians who are also referred to as human computers. The women in the film were some of the influential brains in the success that NASA had in launching John Glenn into orbit around the earth in 1962. The movie seeks to challenge the perception of the viewer in the historical science of a black woman. The scenes that result in the blast off of the Mercury-Atlas 6’s were acknowledged in the movie. All the major changes that resulted in the development of the current NASA started in 1961 (Ikawati, 2018). The movie uses three women characters of color in providing socio-psychological ideas and seeks to change the focus of the audience.
The Vice of Racism and Discrimination
The three women in the movie are not only focused on achieving the goals in their research but also in breaking down the gender and race divisions within the process. As they continue with their research, they experience a considerable level of setbacks and some glorious triumphs that changed the course of history. The movie is a story of women who are quietly confident in what they are doing and their abilities. They bear certain strength in them that any woman in modern society would be proud to have. The movie is proof that whatever the race or gender of an individual is, no dream is too big to achieve. There is one outstanding moment where Al tears a woman of color’s toilet that is on the wall, proclaiming that AT NASA, we all pee the same color (Cramblet Alvarez et al., 2020). The scene is quite inducing and encourages the audience on the standards of gender and race.
Any act of discrimination based on either gender or race has a considerable psychological effect on an individual, and therefore, immediate action has to be taken. In most cases, people tend to watch a movie and think of it more deeply past the message it was intended to convey. Therefore, there are a number of lessons that one can learn from the movie based on his or her perspective. The movie brings clear the role that each individual has to play in combating any practice of segregation and discrimination. Even though the contributions are not clearly evident to many, the movie teaches some of the important lessons for science and the entire society. At a scene in the movie, Katherine was assumed to be in a room emptying the trash and not crunching the numbers for the organization. Even though both the positions are important and admirable, it was assumed that Katherine was only in the organization for one capacity. Largely, African Americans have lagged in the field of science, and their number is, therefore, very few (Cordova, 2020). With the content of the movie, one can imagine some of the important things within a society that could not be captured in the movie because of fear. It tends to pass a message on the importance of maintaining focus and making the right choices.
Attempts to Eliminate Segregation
One of the most important scenes in the movie is the removal of the colored bathroom sign. Katherine was to operate within a building where there wasn’t a restroom for African American women. This is despite her key role and skills in analytic geometry, which was key to the project. At that time, just a simple accommodation like a washroom was often segregated, implying that she couldn’t visit any other bathroom apart from those set aside for the blacks. On a daily basis, she would run across the entire campus to access a colored bathroom. As she was confronted with the question of where she would go and take 40 minutes daily, she explained every challenge she had been experiencing. She stated the difficulty she had in relieving herself in the far end of the campus and the touch conditions of work (Ikawati, 2018). At that time, the majority group just considered segregation a regular act despite the fact that it had been prohibited by the constitution.
When she listened to the statements made by Katherine, the supervisor of the group, Al Harrison decided it was a moment when action had to be taken and push for a change. He knocked down the colored bathrooms and came up with a bathroom and restrooms for all, irrespective of the color. The process towards the end of segregation took a gradual step with the amendment of the United States constitution. The fourteenth amendment states that “Nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” It is quite evident that the segregation of the bathrooms and the restrooms limited the freedom of the black women, and they had to a situation that didn’t give them fair treatment as United States Citizens. By destroying the colored bathroom, Mr. Harrison wanted to show the organization’s need to step forward and protect its employees’ freedom irrespective of the color of their skin (Cordova, 2020). The event increased the level of tolerance among the male workers, and they accepted their African-American colleagues. They even corrected the mistakes as the marking of the coffee pot as “colored,” something that started when Katherine joined the team.
Distortions of the Actual Events
In a certain way, the movie was a whitewash to explain the role that the white people play as the struggle for equality at the workplace continues. Sadly, some of the events depicted in the movie didn’t happen in the actual sense. As the film followed the exact life of Mary, Dorothy, and Katherine, it also referenced the book, Hidden Figures written by Margot Lee Shetterly. According to the writer, the scene where the character of Al Harrison knocked down the sign didn’t actually occur in real life. Also, the interviews conducted with the African American women who were working at NASA by the time stated that it is true anyway that Katherine Johnson didn’t enter the colored bathrooms and visited those that were set aside for the white employees (Sitto & Davis, 2020). This depicts that the whole seen was set in a manner that brings a dramatic effect. Neither the African Americans nor the white Americans would have liked to see the persistence of inequality and that those who represented the majority didn’t do anything to address it.
Even though the movie depicted the discriminations that took place in a high standard organization like NASA, it is also important to acknowledge that it didn’t do that in a truthful manner. It is not clear why the director of the movie decided to give the white men a bigger role in the fight against inequality than they did. It amounts to the pleasing of the viewers. Also, it is necessary to understand that the scenes in the movie occurred three years after the passage of the civil rights act in the United States in 1964. The act declared the prohibition of segregation and discrimination. This implies that despite the constitution of the civil rights act, NASA still limited the rights of its African American employees based on prejudice (Ireland et al., 2018). Even though the movie took a great step in trying to depict the inequalities, its attempt to distort the actual image was a disrespect to the women who worked under the oppressive rules at the workplaces that limited their success and productivity.
In conclusion, Hidden Figures is a brilliant film that explains the aspect of inequality at the workplace and the different barriers that African American women had to overcome to achieve their goals. The movie is praised based on how it has dramatically depicted the powerful monologues and events relating to the struggle of African American women. The movie is proof that whatever the race or gender of an individual is, no dream is too big to achieve. At a scene in the movie, Katherine was assumed to be in a room emptying the trash and not crunching the numbers for the organization. Even though both the positions are important and admirable, it was assumed that Katherine was only in the organization for one capacity. Katherine was to operate within a building where there wasn’t a restroom for African American women. This is despite her key role and skills in analytic geometry, which was key to the project.
References
Cordova, M. (2020). Hidden Figures Film Analysis. Angelo State University Social Sciences Research Journal, 8.
Cramblet Alvarez, L. D., Jones, K. N., Walljasper-Schuyler, C., Trujillo, M., Weiser, M. A., Rodriguez, J. L., … & Leach, J. L. (2019). Psychology’s Hidden Figures: Undergraduate Psychology Majors'(In) Ability to Recognize Our Diverse Pioneers. Psi Chi Journal of Psychological Research, 24.
Ikawati, A. A. W. (2018). Afro-American Women Discrimination on Hidden Figures movie: A Critical Discourse Analysis (Doctoral dissertation, Thesis. Sanata Dharma University, Yogyakarta).
Ireland, D. T., Freeman, K. E., Winston-Proctor, C. E., DeLaine, K. D., McDonald Lowe, S., & Woodson, K. M. (2018). (Un) hidden figures: A synthesis of research examining the intersectional experiences of Black women and girls in STEM education. Review of Research in Education, 42(1), 226-254.
Sitto, K., & Davis, C. (2020). Hidden figures: reframing gender prototyping from a communication science perspective. Agenda, 34(4), 65-76.