Jesse White
Film Analysis “Hidden Figures”
11/20/22
Written by Medfi and Allison Schoreder, the biography film “Hidden Figures” follows the
story of three gifted African American women who work at NASA and are tasked to help get the
first man on the moon. The film takes place in 1960 in Hampton, Virginia where African
Americans as a whole experienced serious racial discrimination. The film begins with a potential
police brutality scene that shows off the womens intelligence and strong minds to handle racial
discrimination. After the three womens car breaks down on their way to work a police vehicle
approaches Katherine, Mary and Dorothy were initially frightened while having a conversation
with the officer, Dorothy expresses that there was “no crime in a broken down car” and
Katherine argues “no crime in being a a Negro neither”. The conversation continues while
Katherine is explaining their situation to the cop he says assertively, “are you being
disrespectful? Do you identification on you?” Once the cop realizes they work for NASA his
demeaner changed, “NASA, now that something… the lease I can do is give y’all an escort”.
After he discriminated against them for their race or gender, the cop recognized that given such
a high class and academic level he changed his mind and switched. This specific incident
shows how racial and discimination occurred yet the class and academic level of the individuals
altered the way the cop sees them.