I went to see Hidden Figures on Saturday with
fabrisse -- the film about the African-America women who worked as computers for NASA during the run-up to the Friendship 7 launch. As a movie, it's well paced, keeps track of the 3 main characters well, and does a good job of making math and computer programming dramatic, which isn't always the easiest thing.
It also doesn't play down the fact that while NASA was a place that employed many African-American mathematicians and engineers, it was still a segregated employer in an America where segregation was legal and government-enforced. There are a lot of white characters in the movie who enforce fairly awful cultural norms without thinking, because they've never had to think about them before.
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It also doesn't play down the fact that while NASA was a place that employed many African-American mathematicians and engineers, it was still a segregated employer in an America where segregation was legal and government-enforced. There are a lot of white characters in the movie who enforce fairly awful cultural norms without thinking, because they've never had to think about them before.