Aesthetic of Violence

Aesthetic of Violence

Kierra, Yinkai and Sarah

City 0f God

City of Men

9.

Why "City of Men" ?

Article's Main Thesis Statement

Ultimately, Gabriela Borges addresses as her main point, on whether the representaton of violence in this series of the City of Men potrays, criticizes or reflects what is actually happening in Brazilian favelas or if it is merely an aesthetic look into poverty for the delight of audiences, both in Brazil and abroad.

Good and Evil

• Borges uses City of Men's television platform to underline its difference from other Brazilian television series'.

Plot

• From this Borges notes that viewers are accustomed to identifying with the character in fictional plots. Many series' are presented through a strandard format between "good" and "evil" that never strays from this 'Manichean' storyline of characters.

• City of Men calls viewers' attention to a new element of Brailian audio-visual programs by incorporating a documentry quality that uses the narrative of common people from the favelas.

Human

Interaction

• Borges wants to agrue that because of this City of Man is more "human" than a fictional production and is therefore a quasi-documentry.

Technique

• City of Men although not actually a documentry, still uses a documentry's technique of hand-held cameras, voice-over to represent character's accounts, and localized settings in order to "give authenticity to the narrative" (Borges, p.136).

The people

• The actors in City of Men actually lived in favelas "generates a specific effect of the real" and they represent a partial truth to the subject matter in the series as well (Borges).

Characters

• Ismail Xavier notes that documentry films use different viewpoints, to give a voice to different social subjects turning them into "discrete ethnography" or in other words, a piece of evidence found within the favela (Borges, p.131).

Examples by Gabriela Borges To Reinforce Her Point:

7.

Additionally, Borges puts forth that television has the ability to 'mirror society' into an image of reality that is exhibited on screen.

Uolace and Joao Victor

• In this episode two teenagers, a favela resident and a middle-class Brazilain

• They are filmed together and despite their difference in social class they still share similar insecurities that help to "deconstruct the myth" that criminals are only those living in favelas.

Pais e filhos

Foi sem quer

• Adresses the prejudice and diffculties of favela residents in getting a job

• Christine, a 14 year-old teenager gets pregnant
• The episode shows how pregnancy triggers leaving school and a lack of employment opportunities because there are no places for childcare in the favela.

• Through their dialogues, each serves as confirmation that black and poor people only gets jobs as domestic employees and garbage collectors.

Correiro

5.

• Highlights segregation of the community shown through the postman, that cannot deliver letters because there is no formal addresses, street names or maps that collectively make up those that live within the favela.

• The episode reveals the deepening issue on how favelas are not places integrated as well as those with a "mailing address" or on the other side of Rio de Janeiro.

Breakdown

1. Historical Trajectory/ Influence:

Glauber Rocha

Television vs. Cinema

2. Rede Globo:

& Main Points

3. Main Thesis Statement

& Conclusion

4. Examples

& Questions

5. Clips

Borges's Conlcusion

• Borges concludes that each episode in City of Men provides a "happy ending" that extends into a classical narrative that represents a morale.

• Borges argues that this series is a documentry because it ultimately speaks on multiple issues: social class and stereostypes, pregnancy and sexuality, lack of employment and communal isolation.

8.

• Despite any aesthetic of violence shown on screen, the latter is more important.

10

Introduction

Audience Questions

The historual influence of the 'aesthetic of violence' , first and foremost, comes from, Glauber Rocha's 'aesthetic of hunger'.

1.

Rede Globo

4.

Rede Globo has reaffirmed the importance of television in the revival of Brazilian Cinema.

• Rede Globo has formed what is known as "Globo quality standard"

Glauber Rocha

Therefore, we must consider the setting of the viewer/audience.

Cinema

3.

Glauber's Influence into the 90s of the

Representation of Poverty

• Like the "aesthethic of hunger", "aesthethic of violence", seeks to present an "unbearable image to destory cliches about poverty and to contradict audiences' expectations." (Borges)

• Hunger like violence, is "not only an alaraming sysem; it represents the very nerve of society." (Borges)

• The method of attracting the audience is through an image of ugliness--of poverty.

City of Men "depicts violence and poverty experienced by children and teenagers who live excluded from the consumer society." (Borges)

• Individuals are subjects of their own reality, and subsequently there is no hope for them.

• By "using non-professional actor's and being based on facts, the fim's narrative depicts the violence and exclusion experienced by the residents of the community through techniques that envision violent cruelty as an amazing spectacle." (Borges)

Aesthetic of Hunger

• In cinema, violence is a theme which seeks to challenge or change reality.

60s, 70s into the 90s

• As a result, drugs or murders build a negative viewpoint of the favela life.

Inspiration of the

Television

2.

• Television offers a "representation of favela violence that perpetuates a vision of poverty-striken people as objects of commiseration, never as subjects in their own social reality." (Borges)

The representation of the oppressed has been well known in Brazilian cinema since Glauber Rocha's manifesto "Aesthetic of Hunger."

So, what is the Main Difference

that Gabriela Borges stresses?

• Ultimately, 'hunger' in the sertao and favela are a pardigm of the real Brazil.

• City of Men shows a non-stereotypical view of lives in the favelas and demonstrates violence as a norm of that society. Violce is present, but not the focus, it is in fact "romanticizied".

City of God offers a negative perspective. In constrast, City of Men demonstrates the effects of the society where the characters find themselves. There is a positive portrayal in the television series since they are suffering the effects of poverty as well as exclusion and violence. The representation of violence is not only only a thematic issue relatively common to Brazilian favelas but also a common aesthetic within TV dramas.

Sertao like favela, portray and visualise this land as a land of endless violence and hunger.