The City of God - Movie Review Example

April 29, Causes of Urban Crime in of God: Social Indifference, Corruption, and Social Networks Ray Bromley describes working in the streets as a form of “survival strategy” for the marginalized sectors of society (178). City of God, directed by Fernando Meirelles and Kátia Lund, demonstrates how a survival strategy turns into a lethal lifestyle. The film depicts urban crime that infects the City of God (or the City), one of the ghettos in Rio de Janeiro. The City has several adult and youth gangs that aggressively fight each other for power and wealth. The causes of urban crime are more social than individual, nevertheless, although some personalities, such as Li’l Zé (Leandro Firmino), appears to exhibit a violent personality that is attracted to criminal living. City of God shows that urban crime has predominantly social causes- social indifference, police corruption, and the social networks of poverty and youth gangs. Urban crime is widespread in the City of God because of social indifference. Extensive poverty is an ironic product of poverty-alleviation government programs. Rocket (Seu Jorge) narrates how the government sends the homeless to the City. It is supposed to be a city that helps the poor through public housing and other social services. In truth, it is a dumping ground for the underprivileged. Public officials are not interested in resolving poverty in the long-run, and they even worsen it by stockpiling the needy in one place. At the same time, the government does not care if the City lacks jobs, electricity, and paved roads. To the State, the poor are not human beings who have dignity and who deserve basic social services and infrastructures. Rocket summarizes the role of the government in the lives of the destitute: “for the rich and powerful, our problems didn’t matter” (City of God). The government fails to serve the people, as it fails to help the poor escape poverty. Furthermore, the middle and upper social classes do not care about the plight of the ghettos too. They would rather not see poverty by pushing the working class and the impoverished at the geographical margins of their affluent existence. The first part of the movie shows Li’l Zé’s gang running after a chicken. The small government houses, shanties, and narrow alleys teem with people, animals, and rundown things. They showcase what Sharon Zukin illustrates as living so close together, which characterizes the “public space” of the poor (141). These public spaces signify how the State works with the upper social classes in segregating the affluent from the poor. The rich and powerful sectors of society turn a blind eye to the social needs of the unfortunate, which disables them from breaking away from poverty. Apart from social indifference, another aspect of society that sustains urban crime is pervasive police corruption. The police do not serve the people; essentially, they serve themselves. Rocket narrates that Li’l Zé pays the police, so that they would not intervene with his drug business. The police also supply guns to criminals. The supposed law enforcers act as the primary lawbreakers. The film depicts that the persistence of urban crime relies on police corruption. In addition, paradoxically, the police both work for the government and the hoodlums. The police constitute the criminal economic base of the City’s society. If culture is an “economic base,” as Zukin describes it, the culture of the City represents an underground, immoral economic base. On the one hand, Li’l Zé’s leadership established peace, after he killed other gang leaders and connived with the police. His economic prosperity has provided a semblance of peace in the City. On the other hand, crime’s marriage with violence and corruption never produces lasting peace. Police depravity nourishes crime because, as they take everything from gangs, the latter end up doing more crimes to recuperate their losses. These gangs, in turn, kill each other to protect their turf. The economic base of police corruption promotes violent and criminal ends. Besides police corruption, the social networks of the poor perpetuate urban crime. Poverty binds the poor together as one family. The people of the City of God protect the Tender Trio, for example, because they give the former some of the money that they steal from others. When the police ask the people about the whereabouts of these young thieves, no one admits that they saw anything. These people represent the urban poor culture where their “sense of …selves” come from their shared socioeconomic affinity (Zukin 135). They seem to see themselves in these juvenile delinquents, who merely want to survive the world illegally because society has not offered them legal means for success and happiness. By protecting the delinquent youth, however, the poor only condone and spread urban crime. They are the protectors of criminals, but they are also the latter’s victims. Li’l Zé, for instance, killed the guests of the hotel. His hunger for blood demonstrates the consequences of protecting juvenile delinquents. The social network of poverty breeds more young criminals, instead of saving them from criminality. The predominant social network that feeds urban crimes is the community of youth gangs. Youth gangs produce urban crime, but they do so because of lack of educational and economic opportunities. The Tender Trio, for instance, are not studying or working through legal employment. Another example comes from Li’l Zé’s gang members who cannot even read. These illiterate adolescents have clearly not finished grade school. The youth conduct crimes because they are not educated enough to find gainful employment. Furthermore, urban crime results from poor economic opportunities in the ghettos. Bromley describes work in poverty-ridden neighborhoods in Cali, Colombia. The poor remain underprivileged in these communities, even those who have non-criminal jobs or businesses, because they have “low status low average incomes” (164). Rocket works at a supermarket for long hours, for instance, but his wages are too low for him to have a more decent life. Another example is the bus conductor, Knockout Ned (Seu Jorge), who has already worked for the army, and yet afterwards, he becomes a low-paid conductor. These children and young men are trapped in poverty. They lack reliable sources of livelihood, so they are at high-risk for criminality. Another example of lack of economic opportunities, especially for the youth, is when Rocket depicts the drug-dealing organizational system, where the older youth use very young children as messengers, delivery boys, and lookouts for the police. These kids become dealers, soldiers, and managers later on. The cycle of urban crime rides on the cycle of youth gangs- from the Tender Trio to Li’l Zé to the Runts. They are criminals because they have nothing else to do. Moreover, the movie shows that urban crime is not easy to resolve because older kids train younger kids to be criminals. In their gangs, they look after each other as if they are family. Li’l Zé, for instance, teaches Steak to be violent, by asking him to shoot and kill a Runt. Violence is passed on from one generation to generation. Childhoods are lost, as children mature by learning criminal lifestyles. Li’l Zé dies from the bullets of the guns that he gave the Runts. But the film shows a worse scenario. None of the Runts can even write or read well, and yet they are creating a Black List, where they are putting everyone they hate or think are threats to their gang. These kids are emotionally and mentally immature, but they have guns and no parents and government to guide them. The City of God has no future because its kids have no future. City of God shows the roots of urban crime: social indifference, police corruption, and the social networks of poverty and youth gangs. The City has prevalent urban crime because the State and affluent groups do not care for the poor, while the police use them for their self-interests. In addition, the ghetto has social networks that perpetuate poverty and violence. These children mature too fast and too dissolutely. Urban crime starts and ends with them. In the end, the bodies of juvenile delinquents will pile in the streets, all victims and perpetrators at the same time. Does anyone care? If anyone did, they will be in the Runt’s black list. Hopelessness and brutality will vibrantly live on, except for these kids and the future of the poor. Works Cited Bromley, Ray. “Working in the Streets: Survival Strategy, Necessity, or Unavoidable Evil?” The Urbanization of the Third World. Ed. Josef Gugler. Oxford: Oxford U P, 1988. 161-182. Print. City of God. Dir. Fernando Meirelles and Kátia Lund. Perf. Alexandre Rodrigues, Alice Braga, Leandro Firmino. O2 Filmes, 2002. Film. Zukin, Sharon. “Whose Culture? Whose City?” 1995. Print. Read More