The scene in which Harrison kindly invites Johnson into the control room during the launch was similarly controversial, not just because that didn't happen, but because, per Vice, it was another example of an "alteration only serves to soothe the conscience of white people." Director and co-writer Theodore Melfi, who is white, defended those scenes, stating "There needs to be white people who do the right thing." Which indeed there were, at NASA and elsewhere - just not exactly those "right things.Parents need to know that Hidden Figures is based on the inspiring true story of three brilliant African American women who worked at NASA in the 1950s and '60s as "human computers" - making calculations and contributions that helped launch the manned spaceflight program. Specifically, a climactic scene - in which fictional Space Task Group head Al Harrison, horrified upon learning the extent of the discrimination faced by Johnson, destroys the "Colored ladies' room" sign with a crowbar and proclaims the end of segregation at NASA - was lambasted by publications such as Vice, which took it to task for "portraying Johnson as being saved by a benevolent white character." After all, Johnson took care of the "bathroom problem" herself, by outright refusing to set foot in the colored restroom she most certainly didn't wait around until a white superior ended segregation with his own hands. Still, Mary Jackson did have to file a petition with the City of Hampton to be able to attend classes at the whites-only Hampton High School, and, even though the process was not as taxing as in the movie - she was granted special permission and did not have to go to court - Jackson often vented about her distress at the absurdity of segregation to her mentor Kazimierz Czarnecki, upon whom the character of Karl Zielinski is based. In fact, she has gone on record saying she did not personally feel discriminated against at NASA (via History vs Hollywood). But Katherine Johnson herself never bothered to look for a colored bathroom and just used whichever one was closest. Shetterly's book does mention Mary Jackson's frustration at having to look for a colored bathroom during her time at Langley, and it is true that, up until 1958, the Langley Research Center was heavily segregated despite the significant presence of Black staff. That didn't mean discrimination no longer existed, of course - especially considering segregation laws were still in place in Virginia at the time. And she did not watch the launch from the control room, but from her office, on television. Johnson's marriage to Jim Johnson (Mahershala Ali) also occurred much earlier.įinally, the film's climax is significantly exaggerated for impact: John Glenn did request that Johnson manually calculate his orbital trajectory to make sure it was correct, but she did it over several days, not in a few seconds right before the launch that would have been humanly impossible (via collectSPACE). The timeline is also a little off by 1961, the year the film is set, Johnson had already transferred to the Space Task Group along with the rest of the Flight Research Division, Vaughan was already a supervisor, and Jackson was, by that time, an engineer.
Per the NASA website, the characters of Al Harrison (Kevin Costner), Vivian Mitchell (Kirsten Dunst), and Paul Stafford (Jim Parsons) are all composites, meant to represent attitudes of the time - and, in Harrison's case, the NASA hierarchy at large - rather than any specific historical figures.
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