How would you rate "Hidden Figures"?
The more I think about it the less impressed I am. Hidden Figures tries to empower African American females by acknowledging three highly relevant figures in the history of NASA. But eventually it becomes yet another feel good movie about an important race issue regarding females, make to fit and please mainly white audiences, instead of staying true to the essence of the story.
I
find that it is always tricky to talk about movies that are advertise as an
anti-racism film or that recognize the value of African Americans in history.
It can be particularly tricky to criticize them. I think Hidden figures is far from
being a great movie, it is even questionable its status as a good movie. My issue with it is that it should have been a movie that speaks to the times we are living now by showing the times that came before. It would have even worked as a movie those specific women of color who stood up, who said enough, who did
no wait for the white guy to bring down the “colored bathroom” but took it down
themselves. In a way it tries to be and I am not saying that it is not relevant, but
the miss opportunity to be the movie that gives a step forward is there.
Hidden
Figures is composed by three storylines that interconnect with each other.
Katherine Globe, Dorothy Vaugh and Mary Jackson are three African Americans
working at NASA, their jobs will be link in one way or another to the launching
of the Mercury-Atlas 6 in which Jon Glenn would become the first astronaut to
orbit Earth.
Each
storyline has its black heroine and their white “nemesis” that eventually would
come around and embrace them in a lifetime-teaching-cheesy moment. This of course after they have proof themselves. Hidden figures is full
with clichés that disguise the fact that it puts the white male/female in the center of the fight for race
equality. And this can be one of my biggest issue with this movie, it choose to
pleased the dominant narrative while paradoxically it tries to give a sense of
black females empowers. Because yes, African American females did a lot for America but what it is imperative is never to forget the white male/females
that allowed it.
On
top of this there is this constant comedic aspect that cheapens the movie
almost entirely. Becomes like a mix of The Help with… oh wait, just like The
Help. It is almost exactly the same movie. Octavia Spenser seems to be playing
the exact same character. I read somewhere on the Internet “The Help in space”,
and sadly that is exactly what this is. Hollywood, we have a problem.
But,
Hidden Figures is filled with great performances, particularly that of Janelle
Monae. However, when I left the theater all I could remember is that the white
judge allowed the Mary Jackson to go to classes so she could finally become and
engineer (thank you judge); that the white supervisor after months or even
years of exploiting Dorothy, she finally made her supervisor (thank you); that Katherine is now using the “white bathrooms” because her white male boss
decided to fight segregation and take down the signs for colored bathrooms. All after an emotional
breakdown from her. Maybe, if she would have been a man in the movie she would’ve stood up
for herself and refuse to go to the color bathroom a mile away, just how it happened in real
life.
I left the theater a bit disappointed in the movie but at the time it
was enough, at least they tried; right? As actress Janelle Monae said this film celebrates the often marginalised by society and it is important for our culture. While she is right, the more I think about it the more I think it was just not
enough.
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