There's a bit of hagiography published at The Washington Post, praising Katherine Johnson as a black NASA pioneer that inadvertently exposing the entire story as a lie. [‘Hidden’ no more: Katherine Johnson, a black NASA pioneer, finds acclaim at 98, WAPO.com, 1-27-17]
In the article is a picture an another article from - ostensibly - the 1960s with the title "The Story of Katherine Johnson: Lady Mathematician Played Key Role in Glenn Space Flight." She is noted as an "expert on the electronic IBAM computors (sic)," when she has since been pegged a 'human computer'.Pictured in The Washington Post... when was this article published and what does the full article reveal??? |
It's hard to tell where this article appeared, but this was gleamed from reading the newspaper clipping:
Mrs. Johnson is credited with helping to devise the highly complex tracking system which enabled scientists to predict... within TWO miles, the location of Lieut. Col. Glenn's rocket cone upon its return to earth after three orbits around the world.
She is the co-author... September, 1960... of the NASA Technical Note, D-233, Subject; "Determination of Azimuth Angle at Burnout For Placing a Satellite Over a Selected Earth Position."If you look at marketing for Hidden Figures and positing of Katherine Johnson and other "hidden" black contributors to NASA, you'd believe they alone were responsible for white men being jettisoned out of the earth's atmosphere and into space, ultimately to the moon.
But this is, of course, a gratuitous lie. ['Hidden Figures': 'The Right Stuff' vs. Real Stuff in New Film About NASA History, Space.com, 12-27-16]
'Not a documentary'
"Movies become reality for a lot of people," said [NASA's chief historian Bill] Barry.
For audiences watching "Hidden Figures" who think what they see on the screen happened exactly as depicted, they might believe Johnson, Jackson and Vaughan were close friends, that Al Harrison (Kevin Costner) was the head of the Space Task Group and that Johnson completed quick calculations as John Glenn waited on the launch pad to lift off. The real history, however, was different.
"To be able to tell a story in a way that the audience can understand and make it entertaining enough for them to be able to watch, I think the scriptwriters have to be creative and find a balance between telling the exact historic details and delivering a story that is both interesting and gets the message across," Barry explained.
"I say this all the time but the movie is not a documentary," said director Ted Melfi. "We were painfully aware and very careful with how we portrayed the women and the things they accomplished." "There are little liberties taken here and there to dramatize, but the crux of the story is true," he told collectSPACE.com.
For Shetterly, perhaps the biggest difference between the movie and reality are the number of people depicted.
"You might get the indication in the movie that these were the only people doing those jobs, when in reality we know they worked in teams, and those teams had other teams," she said. "There were sections, branches, divisions, and they all went up to a director. There were so many people required to make this happen."
"It would be great for people to understand that there were so many more people," Shetterly explained. "Even though Katherine Johnson, in this role, was a hero, there were so many others that were required to do other kinds of tests and checks to make [Glenn's] mission come to fruition. But I understand you can't make a movie with 300 characters. It is simply not possible."Hidden Figures is positioned (and branded) as a movie telling the story of Katherine Johnson as the SOLE individual responsible with providing the sagacity and mathematical genius behind putting white men into space, when this isn't even close to the truth.
An absolute, 100 percent lie.
Disgusting.
Repulsive.
Repugnant.
Hidden Figures is predicated upon the premise that Katherine Johnson was the black (well, octaroon at the most) female responsible with deducing the mathematical equations responsible with putting undeserving white men into space, but the author of the book the movie is based upon admits this is all a lie...
But 100 percent representative of every tall tale we are told about black people and forced to celebrate during Black History Month.