It has a 7.8/10 score on IMDb and a 92% score on Rotten Tomatoes.
Sadly, it doesn't seem to be on Netflix, but you can buy it elsewhere (or just get it for free from your local library).
Here's what Wikipedia has to say about it:
It was chosen by National Board of Review as one of the top ten films of 2016 and was nominated for numerous awards, including three Oscar nominations (Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Supporting Actress for Spencer) and two Golden Globes (Best Supporting Actress for Spencer and Best Original Score). It won the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture.
So why am I bothering to post about this movie? Well, I think it's a dramatic reminder of where we've come from and where we need to go. It's important to teach our kids how illogical segregation by gender or color is. It's important for them to know our history so we can improve on it.
As a computer programmer, I like to remember how we got here. I went to the University of Pennsylvania where ENIAC, one of the earliest computers was created. As with the movie's IBM machine, it took up an entire room and required teams of people to operate. Before that, there were only human computers.
Those human computers were mostly women and they later became the first computer programmers. As mentioned in this great article on history.com:
In the 1950s, NASA was starting to work with what we now know as computers—but most male engineers and scientists did not trust these machines, believing them to be unreliable in comparison to human calculations. Dismissing computer programming as “women’s work,” the men gave the new IBMs to the women of JPL providing them with a unique opportunity to work with, and learn to code, computers. It comes as no surprise then that the first computer programmers in the JPL lab were women. They became attached to a specific IBM 1620, nicknaming her CORA and providing her with her own office.
It reminds me of this photo I've seen making the rounds lately on Facebook. It's a picture of Margaret Hamilton in 1969, standing next to the navigation software that she and her MIT team produced for the Apollo project.
Even though Hidden Figures dramatized many aspects of the true history involved and some criticize it for having "white savior" thematic elements, I still think it's a great drama which tells an important story in a compelling way. We're not all that far away from some really silly human behavior with regards to segregation. I hope we continue moving further along in that arc and breaking down the walls the divide us. I hope we continue moving towards freedom for everyone.
I really enjoyed the movie because it reminded me just how hard it is for some people to do many of the things I take for granted every day. Privilege is, by definition, something we don't notice which gives us an advantage over others. Unless we stop and remind ourselves about it and how difficult it can be for others to overcome it, we won't be conscious enough to make any positive change about it.
If you get a chance, I hope you can watch Hidden Figures some time.
