While I enjoyed Hidden Figures, I was slightly uncomfortable with how the film dealt with race. Obviously, I loved seeing black women’s intellects celebrated on the big screen, but I actually felt that the movie’s portrayal of white characters was far too sympathetic. Of the four most prominent white characters (Harrison, Mitchell, Stafford, and Glenn), all four, by the end of the movie, are sympathetic towards the black main characters and take an active role in reducing discrimination against them. This feels somewhat unrealistic, given how pervasive racism was in the 60’s. In addition, much of Katherine Johnson’s achievements in the film are only accomplished because Harrison (a fictional character) goes out of his way to accommodate her. Mary Jackson only becomes an engineer because a white engineer encourages her to do so and a white judge allows her to take classes. This narrative, in the film, feels a bit too similar to the worrisome “white savior” narrative, when a work of art emphasizes how a benevolent white character cures the ills of the people of color. While it is true that these women’s accomplishments were often only possible with the aid of sympathetic white people, it is alarming that the much of the ugliness of the pervasive racism of the time is swept under the rug. This is even more concerning when you consider that both the director and the writer of the film are white.

After watching the film, I thought that perhaps the white characters had been altered from their historical counterparts in order to make them more palatable for white audiences. However, Harrison, Mitchell, and Stafford were all fictional characters created for the movie, and Katherine Johnson actually reported that she didn’t really notice segregation while at NASA. She says, “I didn’t feel the segregation at NASA, because everybody there was doing research. You had a mission and you worked on it, and it was important to you to do your job…and play bridge at lunch. I didn’t feel any segregation. I knew it was there, but I didn’t feel it.” In addition, apparently John Glenn DID have a great deal of respect for Katherine, and really did specifically request that she check the numbers for his launch. All in all, despite some of the disturbing similarities to white savior narratives, it appears that the film was actually mostly accurate in its sympathetic portrayal of the white NASA employees.