Remapping Environmental Protection and Literacy in Taiwan Through an Environmental Documentary, Beyond Beauty: Taiwan from Above (2013)

Since technology accelerated the emergence of industrial societies during the 18th to 19th-century industrialization, modern environmental problems began with or were aggravated by the Industrial Revolution. In the late 20th century, environmental issues have become global in scale, and in the 21st century, the significant impact of climate change raises an increasing global awareness. Accordingly, Taiwan began to industrialize in the 1950s and ranks as the 21st world economy in 2022. The 1970s already exacerbated the environmental damages caused by the high industrialization. It was in the 1980s when a series of pollution incidents awakened Taiwanese society as it experienced high economic growth, and the Taiwanese government chose to ignore environmental protection and sustainability. The government paid attention to balancing the economy and the environment after the martial law was lifted in 1987. Many environmental groups formed in the 1980s, which helped spawn the modern environmental movement. The evolution of documentaries on environmental issues in Taiwan is closely related to the development of Taiwan’s environmental movement and the change in people’s environmental awareness. Mass media are laypeople’s primary source of information and knowledge on environmental issues. Therefore, this paper will re-map the evolution of documentaries on environmental issues in Taiwan and then use a theatrical release of the documentary Beyond Beauty: Taiwan from Above (2013), the highest budget and grossing documentary ever made in Taiwan, to explore how this documentary problematizes environmental issues by combining the narrative of trauma and conflict with the visual aesthetics to raise the audience’s ecological awareness.