#wearestillflying

WHY IS MY SON SLEEPING IN THE SHITTER

Its after midnight and I’m wide awake because my loving and thoughtful fiancee decided to call me at 10 when I was asleep to wish me a good night and I have to be up at 4.

Better than Hell or High Water?

Oh, fuck yes.

Listen, Hell or High Water was good, but it was still a testosterone-laden trip through violenceville with a side of dudes being dudes. Okay, so Chris Pine did it all for his family and it was all about family, but the Native American still died first, and no one took Ben Foster’s mental trauma seriously enough to stop him from getting himself killed. Jeff Bridges was pretty good, and Chris Pine swearing at his brother through his overbright eyes about his moral quandary was awesome. But let’s be real: Hell or High Water was about moral grey areas and cynicism.

We’ve had more than enough movies about moral grey areas and cynicism.

Hidden Figures, on the other hand, was about hope. And progress. And the surprising goodness and resilience of humanity. It was about Discovery and Voyagers and Opportunity and Curiosity--the concepts, not the robots. It was about all the things that make NASA, well, NASA, and all the things that make NASA important: the people, and why they do what they do.

It was about ladies putting a man in space.

It was about black ladies putting a man in space. 

It was about them working tirelessly, despite everything in the world working against them, from their coworkers to their coffeepots to their math to their librarians. It was about them believing in themselves despite everyone telling them not to, and about turning that belief into magic numbers that pulled off the miracle of rocketships and spaceflight.

It was about hope--hope that we can do amazing things if we work together, and hope that people can be better, and about people being better. It was about a darkass time in out country when a lot of shit was going down, and people working through that to come together and put a person in space. 

Do you know what spaceflight means for us as humans?

It means we hope and we try and we discover and we grow and we go and we investigate and we believe and we try some more. It means that no matter how shitty we are as a race sometimes, occasionally, we pull together to do something fucking amazing. It means that no matter how much cynicism and violence and horrible shit is added to the world, we’re also adding hope and wonder and awe and amazing things to that same world. It means we’re trying to find that balance and maybe tip it over to the light side for once.

Hidden Figures found that balance. It didn’t shirk from showing the country the way it was and all the shitty things America did to black people. It had the violence and the horrible things. But it also had the hope, the amazing women doing amazing things despite. It had characters who were the ultimate underdogs and it let them win.

Not a single person died in this whole movie, not one--not for some other character’s development, not for some dude’s motivation, not for narrative emphasis, not for the sake of drama. No one died to prove the movie was ~serious, and you know what? It was still a good movie. There was still character development. Katherine still grew less timid, more brave, more willing to share her genius with the world. Mary still grew less spiteful, more willing to stand up for the right things, not the petty things. Dorothy still grew less willing to keep her place, more willing to speak up, to fight for herself and her girls. No one had to die to make it happen, the story didn’t need to be dark and brooding and violent for this to happen. The usual Hollywood dark and gritty filters didn’t need to be there, proving that the town still knows how to make movies that are Good and serious without needing them to be oppressively dark and heavy.

It was intense without being overwhelming. There was risk with still the hope of reward. It’s just math, you say, how can math be intense or have risks!? Because it wasn’t about the math, my dudes, it was about the people doing the math, and risking everything for the hope that they might accomplish the miracle of the impossible. It was about the numbers lifting humanity into the stars. Literally. It was about a genius of a woman rising, despite everything and everyone telling her she couldn’t, to touch the stars.

Hidden Figures is what’s left at the bottom of Pandora’s box when Hell or High Water and all the rest of Hollywood is done emptying it of all the cynicism and violence and darkness and sadness and anger. Hidden Figures is hope.

Right back at you, my friend. Could we be anything else? 

My fiance came home today after spending 3 and a half months on business in San Diego (we live in New Hampshire.) He got to meet Goo for the first time too.