I saw a tweet from LeslieMac about who would be
willing to plan something on a city level to give this movie a good opening.
That sounded like something I could possibly do.
Shortly after I post this, I am going to add all my
Facebook connections to an event that does already exist for reminding people
to go. This post will come first to explain why.
The first obvious reason is to encourage young
people interested in STEM. While I believe we have made some progress, both gender and race bias
exist in education, and that especially occurs in math and science.
We also know that there is potential to be good at
math and science everywhere, and that people with those skills are often able
to figure out how to make things happen. Sometimes it is getting a man into
orbit, but an understanding of physical properties, natural laws, and how to
calculate their interactions can take us many other places.
The movie is not directed at children, but they can
enjoy it. Rated PG for mild language and thematic elements, it should be
suitable for older children. I was just watching a segment of cast member
Taraji P. Henson's guest appearance on the talk, and Julie Chen said her 7-year
old son loved it and wanted to see it again.
I was surprised to see that the resources on the
movie site do not capitalize on inspiring young people - especially those who
might be otherwise discouraged from it - in math. Local resources may vary, but
at least for my area, the Washington County Museum's exhibit on the Silicon Forest included a segment on
women in technology, and a trip there could be a way of extending the
conversation.
The movie resources include on PDF on faith and one
on family. The family one is a lightly changed version of the faith one, and it
doesn't focus as much on family as on community, but I like some of the
questions it asks about what you might not be noticing. That capitalizes on the
theme of "hidden figures", which represents both the solutions to be
uncovered for solving their physics problems, and women themselves, relegated
to the basement, could enough to do the work but not to be seen.
Inspiring people of all ages to believe that they
can do things that defy the expectations of others, inspiring people to not
allow the judgment of others to pigeonhole them, is reason enough to buy a
movie ticket. It might not be reason enough to make an event and focus so hard
on the opening weekend, even if there are some really good actors in it (which
there are). Here are some reasons for the push:
Hollywood still likes to pay women less and pass over movies with
women in the lead. They have often overlooked actual data
in order to stick with that nonsense, but it still doesn't hurt to have such a
movie report good box office sales.
Hollywood does the same thing with Black people. And they do this with other people of color. Then it becomes a reason to
cast Tom Cruise and Keanu Reeves as samurai, or make the live-action Mulan about
a white guy, or have a Hawaiian native played by Emma Stone. I could go on, but
I think the point is clear.
Sometimes Hollywood seems to think that only really loud movies sell. And then a cozy little book like The Hobbit becomes a convoluted,
bombastic, three-part movie. Action films can be great, and broad comedies, but
there should be lots of different types of movies out there, and part of making
that happen is to go see them.
Because bigots are
already trying to sink the movie. The IMDB board for it
is full of people questioning that it happened, calling it PC revisionism. It's
not getting as much publicity as the backlash against the new Ghostbusters
but it's the same concept: sad people clinging so tightly to white supremacy
that any acknowledgment or credit for any other race or gender cannot be
allowed. It's pathetic, and it becomes more important to fight it every day.
So I will post this, and I will invite, and in my
post I will also tag mothers of smart little girls and people I know who are
good at community organizing. And also I will go see a movie.
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