The City of God - Essay Example

Na ye Paper Soc 345 03-26 of God of God is one of the most critically acclaimed and is featured in many films in Brazil. Based on a true story of the book by Paulo Lins, City of God (Cidade de Deus) is a violent, fast-paced movie that tells the tale of the residents of this Brazilian slum. Events are seen through the eyes of Rocket, a poor black youth who is too scared to become an outlaw but too smart to get saddled with an underpaid, menial job. He grows up in an extremely violent environment and watches as many of his peers are easily sucked into a life of crime and drugs. It seems the odds are against him and the film follows the lives of many characters that live within this small, ramshackle shanty town. In particular, we see two small boys grow up to take two very different paths: the other one becomes a photographer and the other a drug dealer. City of God is a place that has been abandoned by Brazil’s government and is characterised by corrupt police force and an out of control drugs and gun culture. The young and jobless live alongside families and the elderly. The poor quality of living standards, lack of space and privacy impacts heavily on the quality of life of the residents. As a result of significant changes witnessed in the living conditions within the slums, more people moved in and families grew causing the living space to become more cramped, pressured and dangerous. This also caused mass changes in social behavior, with people transforming from petty crimes such as stealing to drug dealing and all-out gang warfare. Lots of poor families lived there and it seems like these slums were governed by their own rules and each society has its own set of rights. One of the most serious problems is youth gangs. Many youths gathered together, tried to take over the slums during 1960s and did not relinquish their stronghold until the mid-1980s. The City of Gods youth quickly turned to armed robbery, graduating to cocaine dealing, and to mass gang warfare in the area. There are two main characters in the film. One is Rocket and the other one is Lil Ze. They are both from the same place, born with the same advantages and disadvantages but took two very different paths in life. Rocket tries hard to keep away from crime and drugs. When he succumbs to temptation, he finds himself liking his intended victim which prevents him from carrying out the robberies. Lil Ze, on the other hand is tempted by the power and thrill of firing a gun and the excitement of drugs and gangs. As the story unfolds, the characters experience different challenges and deal with them in very different ways. Rocket looks beyond the slum for a good life, with money, a career and safety, while Lil Ze is almost blind to the world outside the slum. He is more intent on becoming the most respected and powerful man within the City of God and measures success with guns, drugs and admiration by his peers. This film brings portrays a very important message that criminal behavior and culture can be passed to next generation. Throughout the course of the City of God, it becomes apparent that each generation is learning from the last. In many ways, Rocket and Lil Ze look to the Tender Trio as role models, just as The Runts looked to Lil Ze to see what they should aspire to. At the end of the film when Lil Ze has been shot, the new generation (those kids who have joined the gang) talk of who they are going to kill next to gain control of the area. They are so uneducated that they ask each other who can write so they can make a list of people who they plan to kill. This film shows lots of delinquent actions during different scenes, and Edwin Sutherland’s differential association theory can best explain the action displayed by the characters in the movie. Sutherland first published the theory of differential association in 1939 and later revising it in 1947. Differential association predicts that an individual will choose the criminal path when the balance of definitions for law-breaking exceeds those for law-abiding. This tendency will be reinforced if social association provides an active involvement of influential people in the persons life. The earlier in life an individual comes under the influence of high status people within a group, the more likely the individual is to follow in their footsteps (Jensen, 2002). The principle of differential association asserts that a person becomes delinquent because of an ‘excess’ of definitions favorable to violation of law over definitions unfavorable to violation of law. This means that criminal behavior emerges when someone is exposed to more social messages favoring misconduct than pro-social messages ( Herman, 1995). In Sutherland’s work, he gave out nine propositions: 1) Criminal behavior is learned. This means that criminal behavior is not inherited. Delinquent action is explained by sociological factors not the biological and hereditary factors. 2) Delinquent behavior is learned in interaction with other persons in the way of communication. 3) The principal part of learning of criminal behavior occurs within intimate personal groups. Children are likely to learn delinquent behavior through daily face-to-face gatherings. 4) When criminal behavior is learned, the learning includes: techniques of committing the crime and the specific direction of motives, drives, rationalizations, and attitudes. 5) The specific direction of the motives and drives is learned from definitions of the legal codes as favorable or unfavorable. 6) A person becomes delinquent because of excessive definitions favorable to violation of law over definitions unfavorable to violation of law. This is the principle of differential association. Definitions favorable to the violation of law can be learned from both criminal and noncriminal people. 7) Differential association may vary in frequency, duration, priority, and intensity. The longer, earlier, more intensely, and more frequently youths are exposed to attitudes about delinquency, the more they will be influenced. 8) The process for learning criminal behavior and non-criminal behavior is the same. 9) While criminal behavior is an expression of general needs and values, it is not explained by those general needs and values since non-criminal behavior is an expression of the same needs and values. The goals of delinquents and non-delinquents are similar, the only different thing is the means they use to pursue their goals. According to Sutherland’s differential association, delinquent behavior is learned from intimate people, parents and peers, which is his third proposition. Some researchers examined this idea of Sutherland and found that peer association is the best predictor of delinquency. An analysis of data from Mark Warr indicates that peer attitudes and behavior do affect delinquency. He states that : “the effect of peers attitudes is small in comparison to that of peers behavior, and the effect of peers behavior remains strong even when peers, attitudes and the adolescents own attitude are controlled. Moreover, when the behavior and attitudes of peers are inconsistent, the behavior of peers appears to outweigh or override the attitudes of peers. These findings suggest that delinquency is not primarily a consequence of attitudes acquired from peers” The behaviour of delinquents stems from other social learning mechanisms and these include imitation or vicarious reinforcement, or from group pressures to conform (The influence of delinquent peers, war & stafford, 2006). In other words, delinquent friends do not have much of an effect on a child’s attitudes, but rather have a strong influence on child’s behavior. Also, the influence of the peer’s behavior is much stronger than the attitudes. These finding from Warr gives some explanations for delinquent action in the film. In the film, the characters Rocket and Li Ze both get influenced a lot by their friends. Rocket is a good boy that never commits any delinquent act, but then, he changes his behavior since he sees his friend commit delinquent behaviors. Rocket’s friends smoke marijuana often and they also give him some to smoke. After seeing all his friends doing that, Rocket thinks using drugs is a common thing in the City of God because many people do the same thing. He starts smoking marijuana. Li Ze, on the other hand, is the kid who grows up with his brother and his brother’s friend. Li Ze’s brother is a member of gang, he has gun, he robes the store, and he takes drugs often with his friends and Li Ze. Neverthess, Li Ze’s brother teaches him how to use a gun and fight with people. After being involved in all these delinquent actions, Li Ze decides that he wants to become the most powerful man in the town. He forms the largest youth gang in the City of God with many young kids. According to Sutherland’s theory and Warr’s research, it can be observed that the association with delinquent peers is an important predictor of delinquent behavior ( Hewitt, 2014; Warr, 2006). The youths are influenced to become delinquents as a result of the frequency they are exposed to other delinquent peers. When it comes to aspects related to talking about delinquency, we might link it to peer association especially how delinquent acts influence the kids in the same group. However, we tend to forget that low family income is another factor that increases delinquency. The needs and values of kids involved in delinquent acts are the same as other kids who do not get involved in delinquency. In the film, the kids portrayed are all from very poor families and they have to figure out the way to make money for living and support their families. As such, they view stealing, robbing, and selling drugs as the most easy ‘jobs’ kids can do in order to make money. However, low income is not always the single direct cause of delinquency. A combination of complex factors associated with low income: bad housing, slum neighborhoods, prevalence of gangs and lack of community organization is seen as responsible for delinquent behaviour (Burges, 1952). It looks like an unreviewable cycle; kids from poor families get along with slum neighborhood, prevalence of gangs and learn delinquent behavior from others. However, the government still has no clued to solve or prevent this problem. Read More