Analysis of the Movie City of God - Essay Example

Abdulla Ashkanani PUP200 Kim November 27, of God The nature of life in the Brazilian of Rio de Janeiro is at full display in the movie, City of God. For the youth, life is hard and they have to engage in criminal activities or join gangs to survive in the slum regions otherwise known as favelas. They live in a congested urban setting where the majority of the population struggles to make ends meet. They have a low educational level to warrant for meaningful jobs. Crime is rampant and struggles are manifested everywhere. Sadly, there seems to be no social progress or economic progress to restore the city to its once blossoming and beautiful nature. This paper will examine the planning dynamics of the urban setting with keen interest in the importance of education, the nature and role of government in public housing, youth engagement in crime, slum livelihood, social networks and the general environment of a slum in an urban area. Social networking is a major determiner of the attributes that people will develop, especially the youth. In the movie, youths are portrayed to hang out together in the slum region of Rio. These is a common scene in many areas of the slum as youths idle around and run errands for criminal gangs or conduct independent criminal maneuvers. Interaction within the slum setting helps in spreading the vice of criminality. The process of initiating young boys to crime is clearly depicted in the movie where a young boy is told to kill other young men to prove his commitment. That is a rite of passage in a group of young men who fancy getting money through criminal activities. It is the people that young men interact with and the glorification of criminality in the urban setting that makes the young population view it as the only means of making a living. From the film, social networking has created a culture that glorifies criminal ways of making a living or name in the society. It is a widespread notion that crime can be very rewarding though full of risks. Murder and drug abuse seem not to bother the conscience of the youth in the favelas. The magnitude of the consequences has been reduced by circles of interaction in the setting ("In the Violent Favelas of Brazil by Suketu Mehta | The New York Review of Books"). The importance of education is a key element for emphasis in urban planning. The importance of this cannot be downplayed since the resulting behaviors of the residents depends on it. In the Movie City of God, it is evident that lack of education is catastrophic. According to the reasoning of Steak & Fries, a character in the film, being a man entails smoking, snorting, killing and robbing. This seems normal to him and it is the same with many other young boys of his age in the slum of Rio de Janeiro. This is an attribute of reasoning that could be eliminated by including of a proper education strategy for this urban setting. The enthusiasm with which the boys in the favelas of Rio showed in joining the gangs could be absent with proper education. Coupled with the physical environments, where youths are restricted, the vice of crime and presence of youth gangs who participate in drug trafficking spreads beyond measure. The society becomes ridden with people of identical reasoning. This eliminates the possibility of rectification from within the community since they all pursue the same thing emotionally and physically. There is no one to offer support, therefore more and more youths join criminal gangs. It emerges as important to try as much as possible to improve the physical environment by employing strategies to eliminate presence of slum setting in urban setting. This can only be achieved through sound planning. Due to lack of social and economic mobility, people in urban slum settings are likely to engage in crime to obtain money. As depicted in the movie, money is the motivation for every criminal activity. The second is power. Each member of the of the urban slum setting, as in the Favelas of Rio, especially the youth , is determined to make it economically and make a mark in the society by any means. To do this, they perceive crime as the most convenient means of achieving upward mobility. They are frustrated by the immobility of the economic situation- the economy is not favorable for them to get jobs and make a comfortable living. The economic conditions and poor interventions by the city officials couples by mind restriction to think of crime as a solution make the situation in the favelas worse. Much of the economic policies have no consideration for the residents of the urban Slum setting. While other regions of the country benefit, the film shows that the situation in the slum of Rio de Janeiro remains the same. It shows that the economy of the region is driven by negative vices such as drug trafficking and prostitution among other vices. The reason that crime prevails is due to the failure of the government to focus on the general economic progress of the urban slum region. The government has a mandate in the initial planning of a city like Rio de Janeiro and implementing subsequent planning interventions to improve the quality of life a city. in the film, the Brazilian governments is portrayed as being completely ignorant of the situation and even doing nothing in relation to housing. The culture that glorifies crime and rape seems to have never been rectified by government initiatives. In the film, it is clear that there exists a big gap between the poor from the favelas of Rio and the rich with no solid plan to bridge it. Additionally, the attempts to decongest the urban slum seem nonexistent. The film shows the fault of the government in improving the conditions through housing infrastructure, appraisal of the positive things in the culture and economic intervention with consideration of the slum society. The failure of the government sums up all the things that make life in the urban slum region of Rio de Janeiro very difficult. The film “City of God” was instrumental in understanding urban planning issues that relate to youth crime and urban gang, importance of education, social networking, government and housing, the urban environment and economic influences in urban planning. The film portrayed education and social networks as an important element in influencing people’s choice. It also laid out the role the government plays in setting up urban housing and economic policies. They directly affect the livelihood of people. Finally, the film showed the detrimental effects of youth crime in the society and its retrogressive nature on societal development. It portrayed the impression of how it is like to reside in slum urban settings. Works Cited "In the Violent Favelas of Brazil by Suketu Mehta | The New York Review of Books." N.p., Web. . Read More