When speaking of the urban landscapes of Brazil, one can hardly escape the image of favelas. The tern “favela” itself is a rather complex one, as it describes different neighborhoods with varying population compositions (Costas 2011, 116). Still, in its most general meaning that is used in this paper, favela designates a neighborhood in a peripheral space of a Brazilian metropolis, often populated by Afro-Brazilians and associated with drug trafficking. Since favelas are perceived as a distinctive landmark of Brazilian cities – especially Rio de Janeiro – it is no wonder that they play a prominent role in the works of art and cinematography in general.
One example of depicting favelas on the screen is City of God (original Portuguese Cidade de Deus), a 2002 movie directed by Fernando Meirelles and Kátia Lund. Set in Rio de Janeiro, the film explores various cityscapes of the largest Brazilian metropolis but primarily focuses on the eponymous favela. The city of God represents Rio as a place of strict spatial segregation, where favelas are isolated from the better parts of the city but continue to measure themselves against them.
The city of God aims to be a true-to-life depiction of criminalized favelas of Rio de Janeiro, and, as such, would best qualify as a criminal drama genre-wise. The story, narrated by the main character nicknamed Buscapé (“Firecracker” of “Rocket”), follows the lives of different inhabitants of the City of God across several decades from the 1960s to the early 1980s. The vast majority of the characters, with the exclusion of Buscapé himself, are involved in some kind of criminal activity, which, more often than not, happens to be drug trafficking.
This portrayal reflects the dominant trend for depicting favelas in popular culture: while drugs lord do not control all of them, “drug trafficking and insecurity” are the first associations with this type of neighborhood (Costas 2011, 116). Aside from Buscapé, arguably, the two most notable characters are rival drug dealers Zé Pequeno (Li’l Zé) and Cenoura (Carrot), who struggle for power over their favela and eventually start a gang war. The conflict between these two remains a driving force of the plot for the final part of the film and contributes in a significant way to the depiction of Rio’s urban landscape.
A particular scene closer to the final act of the film highlights the segregation inherent in the cityscape of a Brazilian metropolis. In the middle of the gang war mentioned above, Li’l Zé founds a newspaper issue with a picture of Knockout Ned, one of Carrot’s associates. Jealous of the media attention received by his foe’s underling, the drug lord asks whether there is his picture in the paper, only to find out there is not. Perceiving himself as the de-facto ruler of his favela, Li’l Zé is sure that at least his name should make it into the article and orders his subordinates to read it carefully, but to no avail.
Angered and frustrated, the gang leader makes his men read the entire paper, ads included, but finds no mention of himself whatsoever. This scene hints at dichotomy central for depicting favelas in popular culture: the binary opposition between “favelas” as peripheral spaces of evil and “asphalt” as well-ordered middle-class neighborhoods (Costas 2011, 116). To understand why Li’l Zé is insulted by an article mentioning his rival’s subordinate, it is necessary to take a closer look at this dichotomy.
For the population of favelas as portrayed in the City of God, the isolation from the rest of the city is a default condition normal in the context of their daily lives. Among other things, this separation manifests in visible racial traits – the film depicts favela as populated exclusively by Afro-Brazilians, while the inhabitants of better parts of Rio are mostly fair-skinned. As a result, the City of God describes an urban landscape “hermetically separated” from Rio proper (Costas 2011, 123).
Moreover, at the time of the afore-mentioned scene, the City of God is mostly isolated from the larger Rio due to the gang war going on. It means that the usual spatial segregation into neat and orderly middle-class neighborhoods, that lie closer to the city’s center, and spaces of crime and chaos, that occupy its periphery, is stronger than ever. By appearing in a newspaper, Knockout Ned symbolically overcomes this separation, which designates him as more powerful than Li’l Zé, who does not even get a mention. This accidental demonstration of power to transcend borders separating asphalt from favelas is what angers the drug lord of the City of God.
The scene also hints at another characteristic feature of the asphalt-favela dichotomy: while spatially separated from the middle-class neighborhoods, the inhabitants of favelas continue measuring themselves against the more respectable parts of the city. While some of the better-off favelas in Brazilian cities have “schools, medical services, their own newspaper, radio, etc.,” The city of God is not one of these (Costas 2011, 116).
The newspaper is, therefore, an artifact of asphalt, and the window into how the outer Rio perceives favelas and their inhabitants. In this light, Li’l Zé’s indignation upon learning that the article mentions his rival’s subordinate, but not himself, is a double insult. Not only it depicts the Carrot’s associate as capable of overcoming the near-absolute spatial segregation, but it also designates him as more interesting to the outer world. The anger and frustration shown by Li’l Zé demonstrate evidently that, despite its isolation in Rio’s cityscape, the population of favelas still measures itself against the asphalt and wants to appear significant to its inhabitants. This lack of perceived significance for the better neighborhoods adds insult to injury and infuriates the gang leader.
As one can see, the City of God portrays the urban landscape of Rio de Janeiro as a place of strict spatial segregation, that separates favelas from better parts of the city. This segregation manifests vividly in the scene where a drug lord nicknamed Li’l Zé discovers that an article about his favela mentions his rival’s subordinate, but not himself. His anger at this fact hints at strict segregation of a Brazilian cityscape into “asphalt” as the orderly middle-class neighborhoods and “favelas” as the peripheral spaces of evil.
Appearing in a newspaper printed in larger Rio means symbolically overcoming these spatial borders, which is a feat to envy for any inhabitant of a favela. Moreover, the paper is an artifact of the asphalt as opposed to favelas, and appearing in it means appearing significant to the outer world. Thus, favelas, as they appear in the City of God, are separated from the better neighborhoods of Rio de Janeiro but still measure themselves against them and aspire for recognition beyond the city’s isolated periphery.
Reference
Costas, Gundo Rial y. 2011. “Spaces of insecurity? The “favelas” of Rio de Janeiro between stigmatization and glorification.” Iberoamericana (2001-), Nueva época 11, no. 41 (Marzo): 115-128.