It’s just not movement for me,” she says, disappointed after a setback at work. “Any upward movement is movement for us all. Each is uniquely aware of the broader stakes of her success-for other women, for black people, for black women, and for America at large-and this knowledge is as much an inspiration as it is a heavy weight.Įarly on, Dorothy shares her ambivalence about Katherine’s prestigious new assignment.
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The women consistently out-think their higher-ranked (usually white, male) colleagues, whether by learning a new programming language, solving problems in wind-tunnel experiments, or calculating narrow launch windows for space missions. Dorothy is fighting for a long overdue promotion, while the arrival of an IBM machine threatens to put her team of computers out of work. Mary must navigate layers of racist bureaucratic hurdles in her quest to become an engineer. Katherine is closest to the excitement, but Hidden Figures widens its scope beyond her. She arrives at her new job to find she’s the sole brown face in the room.
is so desperate to beat the Soviet Union into space that NASA becomes a reluctant meritocracy: Because of her expertise in analytic geometry, Katherine is assigned to a special task group trying to get Glenn into orbit. Due to Virginia’s segregation laws, African American female computers have to work in a separate “colored” building at the Langley Research Center. Katherine, Mary, and Dorothy are part of NASA’s pool of human “computers”-employees, usually women, charged with doing calculations before the use of digital computers. Hidden Figures begins in earnest in 1961. (It’s worth noting that, as a dramatization, the film makes tweaks to the timeline, characters, and events of the books.) But her story is woven tightly with those of Mary (Janelle Monáe) and Dorothy (Octavia Spencer) the former became NASA’s first black female engineer, the latter was a mathematician who became NASA’s first African American manager. Henson) is the film’s ostensible protagonist and gets the most screen time. By refracting the overlooked lives and accomplishments of Johnson, Vaughan, and Jackson through this lens, Hidden Figures manages to be more than an inspiring history lesson with wonderful performances.įrom the start, Hidden Figures makes clear that it is about a trio, not a lone heroine. They’re phenomenal at what they do, but they’re also generous with their time, their energy, and their patience in a way that feels humane, not saintly. Vincent) and based on the nonfiction book of the same title by Margot Lee Shetterly, the film celebrates individual mettle, but also the way its characters consistently try to lift others up. BrooksĪnd yet Hidden Figures pays tribute to its subjects by doing the opposite of what many biopics have done in the past-it looks closely at the remarkable person in the context of a community.
She’s only in the film for the smallest of moments, but her cameo is a wink to those who grew up with her work or new readers who are only just discovering it.4 Rules for Identifying Your Life’s Work Arthur C.
And while it’s not unheard of for an author to make a cameo when their book gets adapted, Blume makes her appearance in Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret all her own. Similar to her brief cameos in It’s Me, Margaret and Tiger Eyes, Blume could continue a book adaptation tradition by continuing to appear in all future films about her work.Īn author making a cameo in a film or television adaptation of their work isn’t new - Leigh Bardugo had a brief appearance in Shadow and Bone season 1 and Stephenie Meyer had a cameo in both the first Twilight film and The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1.
Considering that Blume is now more open to her work being adapted, after many years of refusing offers from people who weren’t passionate about the material, it’s possible she will appear in future adaptations of her novels. In the film, Blume played a guest at the Christmas party. The author also had a cameo role in the 2012 adaptation of her novel Tiger Eyes. Judy Blume’s cameo in Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret isn’t her first.
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