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Katherine Johnson has died


Mick4350

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I watched the film, Hidden Figures, on Amazon last week.  It is an amazing story which, I am sure, the producers glossed over much of the trials and tribulations Katherine and those other women must have endured during that era. 

R.I.P.

 

Mike

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2 hours ago, bootneck said:

I watched the film, Hidden Figures, on Amazon last week.  It is an amazing story which, I am sure, the producers glossed over much of the trials and tribulations Katherine and those other women must have endured during that era. 

R.I.P.

 

Mike

R.I.P. Mrs Johnson.  A remarkable woman.

The film tends to paint many of the white people involved in a slightly more flattering light than the book does.  For instance, according to the book the incident with the person portrayed by Kevin Costner smashing down the 'Coloreds Only' toilet sign never happened.

Edited by Michael Morris
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10 hours ago, Michael Morris said:

R.I.P. Mrs Johnson.  A remarkable woman.

The film tends to paint many of the white people involved in a slightly more flattering light than the book does.  For instance, according to the book the incident with the person portrayed by Kevin Costner smashing down the 'Coloreds Only' toilet sign never happened.

No, it didn't. And the character didn't exist either. He was loosely based on Robert Gilruth - who did a lot to remove some of the impediments faced by women of colour in NACA/NASA at that time - but he never smashed anything.

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It’s a great movie. Over the years I’ve learned not to take issue with accuracy in space movies, war movies, plane movies, car movies, computer geek movies or anything I know anything about movies. If it’s a good story, with good characters, well told, that’s as much as I want or expect...

best,

M.

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1 hour ago, cmatthewbacon said:

Over the years I’ve learned not to take issue with accuracy in space movies, war movies, plane movies, car movies, computer geek movies or anything I know anything about movies

Wise advice! They're going to make a mess of it, and they don't care. 

 

That way, you can smile when they actually manage to get something right!

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On the whole, I agree. If they succeed in bringing a piece of history to a wider audience, even if there are inaccuracies, the effort will have been worthwhile.

 

To be fair, I hadn't known much about the work of the "Lady Computers" at the NACA and, later, NASA, until I saw the film - and that is despite reading dozens of books and watching dozens of documentaries on the history of spaceflight. So the movie achieved its aim.

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Any film that is based on true to life events his elements of fiction in it. What is more important in this case is that the story is told. Otherwise, many people in the world,  a lot on non-American students of space and hardly anyone in the communities such as this one, would have any idea of the contribution made by Katherine Johnson and her peers.

 

RIP

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