Awards eligibility and 2016 publications.

I wonder if "Hidden Figures" is Hugo-eligible? Because holy crap, that movie was amazing.

Not Hidden Fences? Hmmmm. 😉

That is an egregious faux pas oft repeated by various commentators or presenters during Golden Globes 2017 in which evidently all black actors and musicians just merge into one identity and film- Fences and Hidden Figures being so similar and all. (Insert eye roll here). Hence, Hidden Fences. Sigh.

"The Right Stuff" was nominated for a Hugo in 1984, so there's a precedent.

I'm back to comment because at first I thought this was just a passing fancy or light repartee but now I'm even seeing this film listed for Long Form on the Hugos Wikia site.

I know you loved the film, as you say it was amazing, but I have to say that as a female scientist, I really find the idea of nominating a film about (edited to add: real-life) African-American women mathematicians, physicists and engineers at NACA/NASA for a Hugo to be demeaning. (I fully understand that was not your intent at all.)

Katherine Johnson is a Presidential Medal of Freedom winner. Dorothy Vaughn and Mary Jackson were lauded NASA employees who fought tooth and nail for their education, their training, their positions. These were real women and to liken their work to science fiction is just wrong. The Martian was (amazing) science fiction. These women and their work are real. The very last thing that women and especially women scientists need at this juncture is to have their work and lives convolved with science fiction.

Stepping off my soap box and sorry if anyone takes offense.

Huh, I hadn't considered that perspective. It never occurred to me that nominating "Hidden Figures" for a prestigious award could undercut the extraordinary achievements of the women involved. But while you make an excellent point, I would note that "Apollo 13" was nominated back in 1997--20 years ago, voters were willing to expand the Hugo umbrella to include another true story about NASA ingenuity. It seems ghastly to me to deny "Hidden Figures" the same honor because a few ignorant people might have difficulty discerning fact from fiction. It would be like holding the fact that the film is about unsung black women /against/ it.

All the marketing for "Hidden Figures" and the film itself make it very clear that the film is about real historical heroines of the space race. Although I haven't been particularly attuned to the subject, I haven't heard of any instances of people in the general public being confused about the film's historicity. I would hope that anyone geeky enough to pay attention to the Hugos would be savvy enough to know the difference between fiction and a biopic.

We live in an era in which climate science is a Chinese hoax and thus fiction. The 1990's was an era when science was still respected. Now it's selling snake oil for many fields. Anything dealing with the climate, the environment... Look at the other day when we were informed in a national arena that evolution was just a theory, with no conception of what a theory is. I hear we've got one of those for gravity. It got us to the moon.