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A Review Of Gate Of Heavenly Peace: The Tiananmen Square Protests

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The two-part documentary, Gate of Heavenly Peace: The Tiananmen Square Protests, provides an overview of the events leading up to and during the Tiananmen Square protests during the spring of 1989. In my opinion the documentary accurately explains the issues that drove the students and citizens of China to march to the square and remain there for approximately two months. The protests were sparked by the death of Hu Yaobang on April 15th 1989, who favored political liberalization and advocated for dialogue with the demonstrators (LO #4, pp. 1). The students began arriving on Tiananmen Square on April 16th, and by the end of the month the protests began to encompass broader grievances with the Chinese Communist Party like corruption, lack of …show more content…

1). The students wanted to use Hu as an affirmation for their grievances and their push towards democracy and away from corruption (LO #4, pp. 1). I think the documentary highlighted the diversity of the protests very well, by including the numerous student organizations involved as well as the citizens who wanted their grievances heard. From my understanding of the documentary, I think the students wanted a variety of things. There were many students there to protest the corruption, economic reforms, and political freedom that they were facing ten-fold compared to their parents. I also think with the heightened focus on Hu Yaobang, it was hard from the protests to steer away from a focus on democracy as well. I feel that the documentary did a good job of capturing the multiple facets of the protests and showing multiple perspectives (i.e. Chinese people, reporters, and Western journalists). I think the documentary was designed to appeal to a Western audience. It includes interviews with Western journalists and academics, includes footage of the Chinese Communist Party’s propaganda and clips of protestors in a way that seemingly demonizes protestors. I do think the documentary does a good job at providing context and analysis of the events through the interviews with Chinese citizens, but I think the overall curb appeal was definitely directed towards a Western

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