City Of God: Journal

City of God: Journal

In this journal I am going to be talking about the target audience, genre conventions, representation of characters and the narrative of City of God movie. The city of God is told from the viewpoint of a boy named Rocket who grows up in the slums of Brazil called Cidade de Deus, which is Portuguese for City of God and is trying to get out of the slums. This movie shows different characters trying to become rich and powerful and the results that could happen. I feel that this movie is general targeted at males because of the character Lil Ze. Even though Lil Ze is the normal anti-hero, I think a lot of males would like he character because of he’s malicious, cool blooded, ruthless, very violent and also his determination to become powerful no matter what it takes. We see this in many of the scenes in City of God for example when they caught 2 of the runts and forces Steak n Fries (a young boy who hangs around with Lil Ze gang) to choose one of them to kill. We see a low angle of Steak n Fries holding the gun to show that he has power over the two runts lives. This is shows that he has no remorse and no morals whereas in Scarface, we see that Tony has some morals when it comes to children for example when he shoots the guy that bomb the politician car because there were children and a women inside the car. This movie was originally target at a Portuguese audience but then when the film became internationally popular. I know this because of the fact that the filmmakers added subtitles so that international audience could understand what was being said.

This film is also targeted at gangster fans because it has some of the typical gangster conventions like rise and fall of the characters, it’s about an ethnic minority, poverty and etc. Even though this is aimed at gangster fans you would have to like foreign movies because City of God is in Portuguese and sometimes this can be off putting for some people but this movie made $114,442 in the USA, £307,177 in the UK, €41,350 in Italy and €169,797 in Spain meaning that even though this film was made for a niche audience, the narrative of movie appealed to audiences all around the world even though there was a language barrier.

The rise and fall of the gangster is convention that is in many gangster films. This is when the gangster starts from being poor than slowly starts to gain wealth and power then slowly things start to fall apart and the gangster dies. This happens in City of God but not as large scale like New Jack City or Scarface. In Scarface and New Jack City, when they start getting wealth and power they buy bigger house, flasher clothes and move out of poor area they used to live before whereas in City of God the character don’t seem like they want to move out of the area and buy bigger house but instead are more interested in being in control and having the most power. They do show a bit of wealthy by wearing chains, clothes and cars; we see this in the scene where all the big drug lords in the City of God are all gathered at the bar. Normally in gangster movies we focus on the rise and fall of one gangster but we were introduced to many character rises and downfalls for example we see the rise and fall of the ‘The Tender Trios’ this included Rocket, Lil Zë and Benny’s older brothers, knockout Ned, shorty and the main character Lil Zë. These little stories on these characters were done so we could build up a clear story on the main character.

Another unconvential aspect of the film is that we had two main characters, which were Lil Ze and Rocket. Rocket is a very unconvential character in this film, he had nothing to the with the gang life and had a completely different social group to the gangster. He would hang around with the ‘hippie’ group. The only ‘gangster’ he really associated with was Benny but he became more of a hippie than a gangster. Rocket balanced out the film and showed that there were also good people with good morals that lived in the slums. Rocket is also the narrator of this film and even though he wasn’t involved in any of the violence going on in the story, this all builds to how Rocket escapes the slums. We see in the movie that things wasn't going too well for Rocket (the girl he liked, like somebody else, Lil Zë picture got release to the newspaper without him knowing and living in the slums) whereas Lil Zë was becoming more power and was gaining the residents respect and as soon as things we going bad for Lil Ze things started going good for Rocket and eventually when Lil Zë dies that is when Rocket gets the job at the newspaper because he gets a close picture Lil Zë’s body. Another convention of this movie is that this has a male lead character, which is a key aspect in a gangster movie. All gangster movies have male leads example American gangster, Goodfellas, Godfather and Get Cater, this lets the gangster movie fans that this is a gangster movie and also appeals to the male target audience.

In this movie you see the men in this movie represented in two different ways. Lil Zë is the typical gangster, he is very powerful and feared, extremely violent, aggressive and mentally ill which is very similar to Tony Montana but Tony had more morals because even though he killed a lot of people he would not kill children whereas Lil Ze didn’t care anybody that got in his way would die, I know this because he shot a child in the foot and got the another child killed whereas Tony killed the guy that was about to kill the children. Lil Ze is a cold blooded killer and has no remorse for anyone because he has enjoys killing people which we see when we see him as kid and he kills everybody in the hotel for no reason.  The other way men were represented in movie is for example the way Rocky and the ‘hippies’ are. They are more relaxed and like to enjoy themselves. These characters are for fearful of the gangster and want to escape the city of God. An example of this is when Benny and his girlfriend wanted to leave the city of God and start a farm but then benny gets shot.

Lil Ze had been represented to have mental issues because he had no remorse when killing people. The fact that he was ugly and couldn't get girls was why Lil Ze was like this. The war between knockout Ned and Lil Ze started because of the fact he couldn't get girls. An example is when Lil Ze gets rejected twice by a girl he liked and she was the girlfriend of knockout Ned who was more handsome than Lil Ze. This resulted in Lil Ze getting angry and making Knockout Ned strip in front of everybody, raping his girlfriend and killing his brother and uncle. In Scarface we also see Tony to have mental issues, as well he is very paranoid. Tony had many cameras inside his office which he also over analysis a lot which supports that he was paranoid and taking drugs made him even more paranoid In every gangster movie, the gangster always has some mental issues. 

In the narrative of gangster, there is always an older mentor teaching the gangster and then the gangster then kills their mentor. In the beginning of City of God you see Lil Dice (Lil Ze) and Benny following the The Tender Trios, which were their older brothers plus rocket's older brother. After the killing at the hotel, Goose (Rocket's older brother) sees Lil Dice and Benny and takes their money and then Lil Dice shots him multiple times. This theme is also seen in Scarface, when Tony kills off Frank because Frank tried to get Tony killed. Another narrative is when the character always starts off poor then gains power and wealth then slowly things starts to get bad and the gangster dies. In City of God you do see this but in a different way. Lil Ze gains power and wealth but unlike other gangster movies he doesn't show the wealth because he still wears normal clothes and is still living in the City of God whereas other gangster would have moved out of their area and got a bigger and better house. Normally with the power the gangster would get a girl because girls were seen as property that came with wealth and power like Tony got Frank's girl when he killed Frank and became powerful. But in City of God didn't use this convention because that was the main problem for Lil Ze he couldn't get a girlfriend no matter how powerful and rich he was Tony Montana fall was more dramatic and large scale because he had a shot of in his mansion whereas Lil Ze fall was a bit more realistic because everything turn on him the guns that he gave to The Runts to kill Knockout Ned with turn again him because he killed one of their members.