I saw Hidden Figures for the first time over winter break and really enjoyed it, so I was excited to see it for the second time at Cornell Cinema tonight. Even though I remembered the plot clearly from my first watching, I came away from tonight’s showing with a lot of new insights into the film. For one thing, it was a very different experience to see the film in a packed theater with people laughing, clapping, and commenting throughout. While I have been to many films where the audience clapped at the end, I thought it was great tonight that people clapped throughout the film after the scenes in which the protagonists stood up to the racist and sexist hierarchy they encountered at NASA.

I also found the talk and discussion after the film added a lot to my understanding of the themes the film portrays. While Hidden Figures is a very upbeat film with a typical “Hollywood ending” in which the female protagonists succeed in their career goals despite the obstacles of racism and sexism, Professor Weeden provided an important reality check on the continued lack of female and minority representation in the computer science field. I was very surprised to learn that even at Cornell, which is above the national average, only 20-some percent of computer science undergrads are women.

Additionally, I really enjoyed hearing other people’s opinions on the film as a whole in the discussion time. One person expressed the idea that parts of the film promote a white savior mentality by portraying many of the gains the women achieved as stemming from concessions from the white male establishment. While I agree that some of the scenes could be read this way, I also thought that many scenes in the film, like when one of the protagonists smuggles a book out of the segregated library so that she can teach herself computer programming, emphasized the women’s agency and initiative in securing changes in their lives. Listening to her viewpoint on the film, however, definitely encouraged me to analyze the film’s message more critically and be aware of potential issues with the portrayal of these “hidden figures.”