Youth culture in global cinema

irds that cannot fly 133
Violent crime is a way of life for youth in the Rio de Janeiro enclave that is the setting for City
of God (2002).
audiovisual media, social and economic differences have grown, making it
impossible for most to have access to material goods. If identity through citizenship
was not a reality, the search of identity through consumption remained
an option. 6 However, this option could not be shared by the majority
of individuals, who were still economically marginalized.
In the presence of these transformations, a new kind of violence emerged,
one that was defined not only by the violent act per se, but also by its motivation.
It was a kind of violence used to acquire material and symbolic goods
that could assure some identification with the constituted powers, legal or
not. The primary characteristic of this new kind of violence was that it became
a means to reach social-economical ascension, social recognition, and
power. Crimes that had been committed as the last resort for survival and to
minimize social inequalities—such as small thefts or con tricks that characterized
the ‘‘vagrant life’’ of the ’50s and ’60s described by Antonio Candido
and exalted by Roberto DaMatta 7 as traits of the Brazilian cultural identity—
lost their potency to the crimes of the international drug-dealing market,
which did not hesitate to use all resources of physical and moral violence to
achieve power.
The beginning of these transformations dates back to the 1970s and 1980s,
a time that coincides with the urban reforms in Rio de Janeiro that moved
slums from the Southern Zone of the city to regions farther from the city
center and the coast. During this removal, Cidade de Deus was created. The
movie is thus about the consequences of this removal and the subsequent