![]() ![]() Am I overthinking it? What are your thoughts? Why would this reel librarian character need a stunt double? Was this library scene originally going to be a bigger scene? Also, does anyone else notice the blurry figure in the background behind the White Librarian in the screenshot in the gallery above? Is that blurry figure in the background an uncredited library user in the “Colored” section of the library? Or a Black librarian? Was there originally going to be a “Black Librarian” character to contrast with the “White Librarian” character? It’s a detail in the background I had never noticed before. Side note: I noticed in the cast list on an uncredited stunt double for the White Librarian (Ruth Dalton). A closeup of the White Librarian Dorothy Vaughan and the White Librarian speak through the stacks White Librarian : That’s just the way it is. ![]() White Librarian: You have books in the colored section.ĭorothy Vaughan: It doesn’t have what I’m looking for. White Librarian: We don’t want any trouble in here.ĭorothy Vaughan: I’m not here for any trouble, ma’am. ![]() What follows is a brief but devastating exchange (and one of the worst reference interviews I’ve ever seen onscreen). Her character is listed in the credits as White Librarian, played by Rhoda Griffis. We then spy a reel librarian - a middle-aged White woman with shoulder-length, reddish hair, no glasses - peeking through the bookshelves. (Props to the propmaster - I appreciated all the call number stickers on the books!) Dorothy Vaughan and her sons walk up the side entrance to the public library Dorothy Vaughan browses the bookshelves as her sons read to each other In the next frame, Vaughan is browsing through bookshelves as the two boys read to each other on the floor. We then see the Vaughans walking up the side entrance to the public library, which I have to assume was the “Colored” entrance at that time. Vaughan says to her boys, “ Don’t pay attention to all that. We can hear calls for “ Segregation must go,” and we see signs that read “ Segregation hurts us all” and “ The presence of segregation is the absence of democracy!” We also witness, along with the Vaughans, a couple of White policemen running to the scene of the protest. On their way to the library, Vaughan and her sons, Kenneth (Alkoya Brunson) and Leonard (Ashton Tyler), pass by an anti-segregation demonstration. And where do you go for information? The public library, of course! She realizes she needs to learn the language of this electronic computer. “Library Scene-Dorothy Vaughn Hidden Figures” video uploaded by Natalie Pedrianes, Standard YouTube Licenseīut first, some context before we visit the library: Dorothy Vaughan has learned that NASA has installed an IBM electronic computer, and she realizes that this machine threatens to replace “human computers,” particularly the West Area Computer division of Black women computers she supervises. I can now say that my memory was totally off-base! The library scene begins at 49 1/2 minutes through this 126-minute film, which means this scene happens a little over 1/3 of the way through. In that original first impressions post, I recalled the library scene clocking in about 2/3 of the way through the film. ![]() A closer look at the public library scene These are stories of American heroes that need to be shared and experienced. Mary Jackson, NASA’s first Black female engineer (played by Janelle Monáe).Dorothy Vaughan, mathematician and computer programmer and first Black female supervisor at NASA’s West Area Computers division (played by Octavia Spencer, in an Oscar-nominated performance).Johnson, mathematician and one of the first Black women scientists at NASA (played by Taraji P. March is also Women’s History Month, and it feels fitting to focus on a movie that champions Black American women in STEM, including: That post has remained one of the most popular posts on this Reel Librarians blog, so it felt time to revisit the Oscar-nominated Hidden Figures film and take a closer look at its library scene. (That feels like a lifetime ago, doesn’t it, actually going to movie theaters? #PandemicLife). Four years ago (!), I wrote about my first impressions of the library scene in Hidden Figures, which I watched in theaters. ![]()
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