Place and Violence in City of God versus Shantytown

In the movie City of God (2002) directed by Fernando Meirelles and Kátia Lund and the book Shantytown by César Aira, there are many similarities between the places each of the works are centered around. Both the Cidade de Deus favela and the Shantytown are places that come to contain people along the lines of class and immigration/migration and race. Despite these categorical similarities, the difference in types of violence highlighted in these two works is indicative of the stage of production the Cidade de Deus and Shantytown are in as places. Violence is indicative of the space of the Cidade de Deus favela being actively being produced as a place whereas the Shantytown is already viewed as a place. This is shown through how violence in the former is highlighted more-so as the results of what would be considered conventionally “violent” actions, while violence in the latter is highlighted as stemming from sensationalized ideas around the Shantytown as a place.

In the movie City of God, the titular Cidade de Deus favela is shown throughout its development from the ‘60s to the early ‘80s. Originating as a state housing project to move the residents of Rio’s slums out of the city center, migrants from rural areas also thronged to it for the cheap living and access to jobs as Brasil industrialized. Lacking electricity and running water in its existence early on, it was a place of those who politicians could care less about; except, of course, when it came to shaping it into a place that kept the population inside trapped and materially exploitable in a cobweb of violence. This violence, from its more direct origins through police repression to its future through organized crime, is focused on as being more-so the results of conventionally “violent” actions.

An early chain of violence that is focused on in the Cidade de Deus begins with the police shooting random youth they deem guilty in the favela in response to the motel holdup killings. For instance, when Clipper of the Tender Trio (the gang of teens responsible for the holdup, but not the killings) comes out of hiding in the forest to repent in a church the morning after the holdup, another person of a similar age walking near him is chased off camera and shot at by the police as Clipper walks on repeating scripture. The next scene features the cops searching and looting the dead body of who turns out to be a worker. Realizing their mistake, the police stage the scene to make it look as if he was armed. This scene in the movie sets a precedent for the corrupt behavior of police throughout the rest of the history of the favela, who in the future only look to make a profit and cover their tracks by any means necessary. Paying off cops to allow for drug dealing, illegal arms dealing, and protecting Li’l Zé’s gang all become a central part of life in the favela. The City of God becoming a place established as a source of revenue for the police and the systematic suffering that follows is something that is more greatly implied through the death of the worker rather than it simply being the shooting itself that is violent.

In the book Shantytown, the titular Shantytown is a fictional villa in lower Flores, a neighborhood in Buenos Aires being portrayed during a period of police corruption in the 1990s. It is shaped almost like a carousel with no clear center and is lit with strings of lightbulbs woven in patterns that indicate street names and provide light. The poorest living in Buenos Aires end up living in the Shantytown, with a large part of this group being indigenous peoples from Argentina and indigenous peoples of other countries seeking asylum from conflict and/or poverty. It is infamous among the wealthier residents of Flores for being filled with crime, though in fact the people living there are the ordinary laborers that the wealthier residents interact with on a daily basis. It is these constructed ideas of the Shantytown as a place that causes violence to occur there from external entities like the state, which in turn strengthens these ideas.

The main driver of conflict throughout the course of the story is policeman Inspector Cabezas’ investigation of the interactions between Maxi, a middle-class resident of upper Flores, and trash collectors from the Shantytown in lower Flores. He assumes that this interaction is related to drug dealing, something that would bring the “inherent” violence of the Shantytown to threaten the order of the lives of people living in upper Flores. Maxi is in fact trying to help the trash collectors haul their earnings along with them and is curious to learn more about the Shantytown and its residents. As events build, Cabezas’ policing of this harmless situation causes him to build a conspiracy around drug dealing at the edge of the Shantytown. He uses this as a justification to try and find Maxi to possibly kill after tailing him to the end of the trash collector’s route, but luckily enough the Shantytown residents hide him. Eventually, this violence erupts in his shooting of a priest he has suspected to be a drug dealer standing at the edge of the Shantytown. In stereotyping interactions taking place between the Shantytown and upper Flores as eroding the order of upper Flores with the violence “inherently” tied to the former place, he is bolstering the way that violence is made a part of its placehood through being the one to ultimately enact it. This impression is magnified through the way a plot twist occurs soon after: the priest that Inspector Cabezas shot was in fact the son of the district judge doing undercover police work. In a widely televised event, Cabezas is killed by the judge’s entourage that arrives on the scene as she gives a speech painting Cabezas’ violent behavior as that of yet another corrupt cop involved in drug dealing in the Shantytown. Ultimately, the cycle of sensationalism around violence bolsters the Shantytown as a violent established place.

Despite the categorical similarities of containing people along the lines of class and immigration/migration and race, Cidade de Deus and the Shantytown’s different stages in their production into places is shown by the different types of violence highlighted in each work.

Published by whosejoe

Place and Violence in City of God versus Shantytown

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