You previously posted this to me:
I don’t know what your high-school math courses were like...
But let's get back to the point at hand.
I am not the only person on the planet who is saying that "Hidden Figures" was revisionist history and propaganda.
You stated that Glenn's reliance on Johnson was factual, as portrayed in the film.
The fact is, we don't know that.
And with Glenn’s death goes the possibility of refuting one of the stranger tales born in the Current Year and poised to become the definitive story of the Mercury and Apollo missions: the Christmas Day-scheduled movie Hidden Figures’ “untold true story” that black women were the real force behind America’s space exploration. In the book on which the movie is based, Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race, by Margot Lee Shetterly, Glenn is quoted as having said this of Katherine Johnson, the black female brain allegedly behind NASA’s greatest glories. “Get the girl to check the numbers,” said the astronaut. If she says the numbers are good, he told them, I’m ready to go.”
You also accused me of being "interested in skin tone." As I explained, I am not the one hyping race in this story. But race is the cornerstone of this movie, because that is what the writers, producers, and actors put out there. Further, the real Kathy Johnson was:
"...NASA’s website now reports that Katherine Johnson, a blue-eyed, light-skinned black female...
And, as the article I linked points out, there are many reasons to question not only the veracity, but accuracy of this movie's entire premise:
- Why isn’t Johnson mentioned in John Glenn’s John Glenn: A Memoir or Alan Shepard’s Moon Shot: The Inside Story of America’s Race to the Moon?
- Why does Charles Murray not mention her in his seminal book on the Apollo program (co-authored with Katherine Murray), Apollo: Race to the Moon?
- Why is Johnson not mentioned in Tom Wolfe’s epic The Right Stuff,documenting the sensational story of NASA’s first astronaut group, the all-white Mercury 7.
- Why, especially oddly, is Johnson not mentioned in We Could Not Fail: The First African Americans in the Space Program.
- Why was Johnson not mentioned in either Jet or Ebony magazine, two black magazines that spent the 1960s and 1970s simultaneously lamenting the lack of blacks at NASA and celebrating any minor achievements of blacks in the space program.
- Why, given her alleged role in the Apollo 13 drama, does Johnson not appear in Jim Lovell’s autobiographical Lost Moon: The Perilous Voyage of Apollo 13(subsequently made into the Tom Hanks movie, Apollo 13).
- Why does Gene Kranz, the Flight Director of NASA famously played by Ed Harris in Apollo 13, fail to mention Katherine Johnson in his autobiography Failure is Not an Option: Mission Control from Mercury to Apollo 13 and Beyond?
- Why, perhaps most significantly, does Johnson not appear in Harlem Princess: The Story of Harry Delaney’s Daughter, the autobiography of Ruth Bates Harris? Harris, who took the job of Deputy Assistant Administrator for Equal opportunity for NASA in 1972, famously said, “I saw no minorities or women as astronauts. Could I help make a difference?” Harris waged a war to get more blacks involved with NASA, which was a paltry 5.6 percent non-white in 1973 versus a government agency average of 20 percent minority. [Societal Impact of Spaceflight, 2007, PDF]
- Why does Johnson not appear in Beyond Uhura: Star Trek and Other Memories, by the black actress Nichelle Nichols, who played the part of Lt. Uhura in the iconic TV series Star Trek? Nichols waged a personal crusade against the overwhelming white nature of NASA, giving a speech in 1977, “New Opportunities for the Humanization of Space,”lamenting how white the space agency was and how this was dehumanizing to nonwhites.
Has Johnson's contribution been exaggerated and used for political purposes? Most specifically to fill a racial agenda?
Yes, I believe it has.
If you want to lionize this movie, hey, good for you.
I would caution you, however, that you are proving the point that propaganda is powerful and has the ability to influence people to conclusions that are not always factual.
You said you read the book and watched the movie. Your spirited defense of both clearly means (to me) that the music, the compelling story, the images, the acting - all influenced your conclusions.
And I believe that "Hidden Figures" is, at is heart - a piece of political and racial politics fiction.