Yasmine Kreidie
4/04/13
Academic Writing
Poverty and Crime in the City of God
The movie “City of God” that was directed by Fernando Meirelles and Katia Lund and released in 2002 is a story about two kids, Rocket and Lil Ze, growing up in the City of God favela in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Lil Ze, a child who wanted to prove himself, became a merciless drug lord, who killed, raped, robbed, and threatened in order to gain power. The other kid, Rocket, witnessed the violence going on in the neighborhood around him and became a photographer. This film demonstrated two paths people growing up in this environment could take and showed the results of their choices. These choices were affected by how good of a role model they had. Lil Ze never really had a positive role model, but Rocket had his brother to guide him. Lil Ze who lived a more dangerous and violent life died at an early age, while Rocket lived on and his photographs became famous.
The City of God film accurately depicts the brutality and desperation of life in the Favelas in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil during the 60’s, 70’s, and 80’s. The City of God favela is one that began as a living community for poorer people in the early 1960’s and within 10 years decayed into a violent, filthy neighborhood controlled by drug lords. (Arias and Rodrigues, 2006) A favela is another name for a shanty town found in urban areas in Brazil. The favelas in Brazil are crowded and violent; in the film you really see how the people in these neighborhoods live. The clothes that people wear are ragged and old; some kids are seen running around without shoes on through the streets, pushing aside people and animals. The houses seem to have layers of dirt on them and dust from the constant commotion pervades the air. The film authentically portrays the squalor people actually live in. In one scene you see a boy riding his bike and in the background there are burnt cars (presumably from the drug war) and trash piled around him.
The first favela was created to house the 20,000 veterans and their families from the Canudos campaign. The favelas began expanding rapidly in the 1920’s and 30’s.About six percent of Brazilians live in a favela. (Center for Latin American studies, Miami) Favelas are often ruled by the different drug lords who control them. There are regular shootings in these favelas between gangs and the police. Residents of these favelas believe they can guarantee their own safety by following the drug traffickers; however this is only because the drug traffickers create a myth of personal safety. (Arias and Rodrigues, 2006) The neighborhood relies on the drug traffickers to keep them safe, which also contributes to the residents not talking to the police officers when there is a crime. “Traffickers are less likely to punish respected and politically connected residents than those who are marginal to the political life of the favela community.” –Arias and Rodrigues. These things are shown in the movie to an extent, but the movie is more focused on the main characters.
As shown in the film, the gangs control what people can do and where they can go. The scene in which a group of poorer neighborhood children nicknamed “The Runts” were punished for stealing from stores in the favela, demonstrated the power of the gangs. In this scene the runts are discussing how they can make money in the drug trade, when Lil Ze and his gang show up. Most of the kids scatter, but Lil Ze manages to catch two members. He asks the terrified children where they want to be shot, in their hand or their foot. He shoots the right foot of both children and orders one of his younger gang members to kill one of the runts. The younger gang member is shown in this scene as scared and disgusted, yet he still shoots the young child. This scene occurred at the point where Lil Ze was at his most powerful, towards the middle of the film. This scene shows how the drug lords maintain order through fear, so they can stay in power. It also shows that children being manipulated by gangs, are often turned into killers or get killed because they want to fit in and become criminals.
Crime in these favelas is the direct result of widespread poverty and economic inequality (Perlman, 2006). Joining a gang might seem attractive to younger children because it is relatively easy money. Brazil has one of the highest rates of economic inequality and this may lead to the have-nots wanting to gain more power (Perlman, 2006). Because of the poverty in these neighborhoods there are many social and family problems, this leads kids and teenagers to look towards other role models, such as the gang members (Arias and Rodrigues, 2006). The absence of powerful role model can drive the young boys to the gangs in order for them to feel respected or fit in. Sometimes the boys think this is their only option in order to improve their lives.
The City of God film does a very good job of displaying a realistic picture of poverty in these areas. You don’t see extreme cases of starving, innocent children. What you do see in this film is how children become attracted to these gangs and how they even consider being a “hood” as a possible future job. One of Rocket’s friends asked him when they were younger, what he wanted to be when he grew up. Rocket said he didn’t want to be a police officer or a hood. In the film you see the transition from troublesome kids into criminals that deal primarily in violence, as in the case with the runts.
This film is mainly focused on the criminal aspect of the favelas and not so much the home lives of the children involved or the lives of average residents not involved in the gangs. This is to be expected from a film that is just a little over two hours. However, one powerful scene which showed the home life of a character was when ‘Knockout’ Ned had his house shot at and two members of his family killed. He was sitting at the dinner table talking to his family, when Lil Ze appeared in front of his house. It really showed how supportive Ned’s family was towards him; he had powerful role model which helped keep him out of trouble while growing up. He later became a vicious gang member after Lil Ze’s attack. This happened because Lil Ze came to kill him and Ned’s brother came out to calm everyone down. Ned’s brother attacked Lil Ze with a knife, which led to Lil Ze’s members shooting him and Ned’s house. They ended up killing Ned’s brother and uncle. Because of the corruption in the police force and the fear of getting involved, nobody came to stop this and nobody was charged. The police who also have to feed their families take bribes from gangs, which helps them escape poverty but leaves the rest of the favela to suffer. The police often aid the drug traffickers in order to gain more money; this helps the traffickers more so than the police officers. (Center for Latin American politics, Miami) This particular scene showed that even people who start out hopeful and friendly can change when pushed far enough by the violence surrounding them. It seems inevitable that someone pushed far enough by violence surrounding them will choose violence to accomplish their goals if it is all they know.
Money equates to power in this film. We see this many times in the movie, in one scene Ned joins Carrot’s gang to get revenge on Lil Ze and begins holding up stores in order to buy guns to wage war. Carrot is a local drug lord who is at war with Lil Ze’s gang. At first ‘Knock-out’ Ned takes a very passive role in the robberies and says there should be no killing when robbing stores, however after Carrot shoots someone aiming a gun at Ned, Carrot claims there is an exception for self-defense. After a while Ned begins killing during their robberies and as claimed in the film, the exception becomes the rule. These crimes are not done because Ned is starving; they are done because Ned feels he needs power in order to kill Lil Ze. Ned wants to kill him because Lil Ze raped his girlfriend and murdered two members of his family. This shows how the need for revenge affected Ned’s life and caused him to become a criminal he had despised at first. This film shows that even the most righteous people, like Ned can become corrupted by the violence and money in these favelas. This also reflects on how little power the police hold in these neighborhoods. In order for towns and neighborhoods to prosper you need a strong, capable police force to maintain order, something the favelas are lacking. The scene where the runts are discussing what they can do to make the most money and move up in the drug business, right before Lil Ze and his gang comes to kill one of them for robbing stores in the favela, shows how desperate people are to escape their living conditions. This desperation is present because of the corruption of law enforcement and policy makers and limited government funds which prevents the slums from being helped (Kirsten, 2005).
However, this is not to say that there are no absolute poor in these favelas. In fact Rio de Janeiro is the number one city with the highest number of absolute poor (Kirsten, 2005). It is no wonder why people commit crimes in order to sustain themselves. The poor want to move up and create a better life for themselves and their families. As stated in the previous paragraph, money is power. To obtain this money through legal ways is hard when you have little education and there are not enough jobs available. To obtain it through illegal means, is much easier, but much more dangerous.
One quote from the main character, Rocket, which describes how bad the neighborhood got after a drug war, broke out between Carrot’s gang and Lil Ze’s gang. Rocket says “people got used to living in Vietnam”. This quote meant that the residents were living in a war zone where they became accustomed to seeing dead bodies lying around and hearing gun fights. The myth of personal safety allows these residents to turn their backs and not get involved because they believe the drug lords will keep order. Even though there are all of these crimes being committed around them.
The City of God favela is shown in the 1960’s in the film, as cleaner and not so crowded. The inhabitants are still considered poor, but there living conditions seemed much better. People could also walk around the favelas without fear of their being a gun fight. There were no drugs aside from marijuana and the criminals tried to help their community. In one of the beginning scenes the tender trio, a group consisting of three criminals which included rocket’s brother Goose, rob a gasoline truck and call everyone to take some. The crimes committed were not as severe or frequent. In the 1970’s the favela is shown as much more violent, crowded, and filthy. This was when the drug lords started taking over and dictating what people could do and where they could move within the favela. As time progressed in the film, the favela kept getting more violent and crowded.
Rocket was a somewhat unique character in this film, because he took photos and observed all of the chaos and war around him, however he wasn’t directly involved in any of it. He found himself literally caught in the middle of all of the violence, when in the ending scene he is trying to catch a chicken and in front of him is Lil Ze’s gang and behind him is the police force. This has a lot to do with the influence of his brother, Goose. Goose told Rocket not to get involved in crime because unlike Goose, Rocket has a brain.
Lil Ze on the other hand, was not shown in the film as having a strong role model. He descended into violence at an early age. While he was supposed to be watching for cops, so the tender trio could rob a hotel, he gave the signal and the tender trio fled. The signal meant that cops were coming, however Lil Ze only gave the signal so he could go into the hotel and kill. He killed all of the residents of the hotel he could find, all the while laughing and having fun. This is how people began to fear him, and he kept this fear going in order to gain power.
Poverty is something which is hard to escape, especially in countries considered to be third world. With rampant corruption of police and lower level officials, and drug gangs that seem to have an endless amount of power, it is no wonder why kids are getting involved in these gangs. Power, money and opportunity are what awaits you if you join an organization involved in trafficking drugs at least that is what the gangs will say to convince kids to join. Without a strong police force and government these favelas will keep eroding. City of God was a film which portrayed poverty as realistically as possible; the reason why it was so realistic was that it was actually filmed on location in the City of God favela.
