Our Lady of the Assassins

In the modern era of Latin America, society handles their situations with similar methods as past centuries; pure and unadulterated violence. If a person angers another individual or if they are in dire need of money, a simple act of violence will be able to cure the current situation at hand. Adolescents commit murder without remorse and either receives the vengeance or payment they desired. In the film, La Virgen de los Sicarios, the issue of the unimaginable amount of homicides in the vicinity of Medillin, Columbia after the downfall of the mob boss, Pablo Escobar. Without Escobar’s financial support and protection, his hitmen formed gangs and began to war with themselves in retribution for past homicides against one another.
While the dominant storyline in the movie revolved around the illicit love affair between an older gentleman and his underage, male lover, the forces of Columbian culture was the deciding factor of the survival of their relationship. Alexis, the teenage boy, is the prime example of a tool within the culture. Drug trafficking remained a large income for private Columbians after decades of continued trade with the United States. According to Forrest Hylton’s article Evil Hour in Colombia, the majority of the national wealth went straight to the “5 percent of the population who owned more than half the land” (61). The social imbalance between the classes further increases the drug trafficking, because the private ownership of the land increases the farming of cocoa, poppy, and marijuana plants.
As stated by Ricardo Vargas in State, Esprit Mafioso, and Armed Conflict in Colombia, the levels of society are dependent on the financial income of individuals. If a majority of the income go to just five percent of a population of several million people, that leaves ninety-five percent of the population at the poverty level of society. As seen in Alexis’ family home, poverty for the average peasant included a small apartment with one bed to fit an entire family. Without financial success, exclusion from the political world continues to further the oppression of people stricken with poverty and leaves them with very little opportunity to improve their conditions.
As people are unable to attain proper work and financial success, adolescents form into gangs to attempt making a quick buck with simple work. The gangs of Medillin were thugs that managed to get their hands on some powerful guns and motorbikes. Their financers were able to capitalize on the political confusion from the constant changing of government leaders. During this time, drug traffickers were able to fly under the radar in order to successfully ship to the United States.
While the homosexual relationship itself had a difficult time surviving due to its illicit nature, a similar relationship between a man and a woman in a similar situation would more than likely be influenced by Columbian culture. While the older gentleman lost both of his teenage lovers to the careless violence in Medillin, his control of the situation was out of his hands before his return to the city. While he spent time with his lovers under the light of the fireworks, his relationships came to an end with every explosion.

Cocaine Cowboys

While the streets of an average city seem to be safe and well-patrolled by the authorities, the true nature behind closed doors could ruin a city’s reputation in a heartbeat. In the 2006 documentary, Cocaine Cowboys, the well thought out and organized drug circles in the Miami area of Florida and Columbia become the scene of extraordinary violence that shocks the nation. In normal situations, homicides are considered to be abnormal, but for the people of Miami in the 1970’s and 1980’s, a homicide was a daily ritual for a residential neighborhood in the war zone.
The beginning of the documentary viewed the transition between two recreational drugs, marijuana and cocaine, as the chief drug trades between the southern tip of Florida and Latin America (primarily the Columbia and Cuba territories). The United States is the prime target of traffickers since the population was considered to be the largest consumers of prohibited substances, which it has been for the past several decades in the recent century.
Methods of transporting the substances across borders have become quite ingenious in their creativity. Coletta Youngers cites in her article, “traffickers have adapted quickly to drug control strategies, developing new methods and routes to circumvent detection” (128). This is quickly observed by the strategies developed by Jon Roberts and Mickey Munday, who were active transporters of cocaine in the height of trafficking. Roberts’ methods included owning several properties and willing participants to complete trades, while Munday preferred to fly his own plane up the west coast of Florida and using a towing truck to transport the drugs into the Miami area.
Another issue related to the cocaine drug trade, other than the massive amount of violence as a result of rival sources, was the abundance of law corruption from the patrol officers to lawyers. Stated in the documentary, cocaine was not for the common American in the beginning of the drug transition. The majority of the consumers of cocaine were middle and upper class citizens who were involved with influential careers. According to CIA documents, the United States’ government easily saw the benefits of utilizing illegal drug money as a way to finance their goals, such as the case of the Contras in Nicaragua. Drug money was a prime way of financing military and authority plans, since it would be collected without placing any unnecessary taxes on the population. An opinion that a politician would have using such corruption would be that the money would go to waste being held in evidence areas, such as when Oliver North desired to use confiscated money for the Contras.
As viewed in Bus 174, police authorities were once again being questioned by the public for their involvement in questionable areas. While the people recognized that drug dealers and traffickers were bad influences on society, corrupt police officers were worse because of their authority. Eventually, when the war between the Cocaine Cowboys was at its most dangerous, any man could be hired as a police officer, increasing in the potential of corruption. While the few proper officers were able to catch a majority of the corrupt officers, the trust between the common citizen and authorities has remained fragile of the decades.

Bus 174

As previously discussed in the issue of violence and crime in Latin American communities in Cidades De Deus, the conditions of the impoverish youth brought forth a large amount of negative actions in response. In the documentary Bus 174, the problems surrounding the mistreatment of Latin America’s street kids by the middle to upper class people comes to the forefront of the public eye when a young man holds a bus full of people hostage. The police force at the time also comes under scrutiny with their inability to properly control and handle the situation presented to them.
Sandro, the gun-wielding maniac as portrayed by the public, gains the sympathy of the audience as the documentary investigates his background. When wealthier citizens would ignore him as a street child, they did not realize his psychological damage brought forth by witnessing his mother’s murder. When the police would arrest him as a teenager for theft, they did not realize that he only stole because he could not attain a job because of the discrimination against the street kids.
In comparison, also blurring the lines of who is truly the victim of Latin America’s society, Alberto Ramos describes a situation in his essay, The Drive-By Victim. The initial response of the reader is that the man being held hostage by the thieves is the true victim. However, after hearing their story detailing a friend in dire need of medical assistance, the audience is forced to question which of the two is the victim. In Latin America, people like Sandro continue to exist despite the government’s attempts to erase their presence.
According to Alma Guillermoprieto, Mexicans realized that the value of a Mexican citizen has decreased with the introduction of American influences within their boundaries in The Heart that Bleeds. For an impoverished individual living in the slums of their city with thousands of other people, who are also considered to be worthless, life was not considered to have any value itself. Sandro himself understood this concept, as he told the passengers on Bus 174 that he had “nothing to live for” when the girls explained to him that he will be shot and killed by the waiting SWAT force outside. The only thing that Sandro himself fought for was the public admittance that he and his people were mistreated by the police force and the middle to upper class people who continued to ignore the big, fat elephant in the room: how they would rather ignore the cries for help by the impoverished than acknowledge them. Yelling out the window continuously, Sandro made references to the Candelaria Cathedral Massacre that had taken away several of his “family.”
As of today, very little has been done for the awareness of the impoverished class of people in Latin American communities. Street kids continue to annoy commuters with their impromptu performances at stoplights in order to earn change for food. The police force is still an amateur group of individuals that does not understand the importance of proper protocol, and the government officials continue to maintain a public image that damages the invisible people of the streets.

Cidade de Deus

Similar to other nations in the world, Latin America deals with the issue of depressed areas that are affected by the presence of violence and crime. Portrayed in Cidade de Deus, a 2002 film, the favelas was the host of the social problems influencing the lower class inhabitants of suburban Latin America, such as the main character, Rocket. Dealing with the daily issues of gangs and drugs, the characters are stuck playing roles that their lifestyle enforces.
Easily described by Julio César Pino, “Favelados have served the city of Rio de Janeiro in every imaginable capacity, but when their services were no longer required they have been discarded like rotten fruit” (Pg. 1). The neighborhoods that Lil’ Z and Benny resided in benefited from the financial success of all the criminal activities, even though the cities were willing discard them as soon as their services were completed.
Employment was questionable in the favelas. People had a difficult time finding employment in the area, especially jobs that were permanent and stable. Monetary stability is a human need for survival, and without a financial income families were likely to suffer the consequences (starvation, poor living conditions, etc.). A job opportunity was scarce in that era for Latin Americans, and the only probability of attaining a stable job was living in an area where a staple crop was grown. Described by Pinot, when a favela is placed near a staple crop, the employment stability greatly increases as economic issues decrease. However, the financial income was still small in comparison to much more successful cities, as inhabitants reported “an average income of Cr$245 per household” (Pg. 24). Imagine how a family of five people can survive on such a meager income.
To further comprehend the issues of the favelas in Latin America, Ney dos Santos Oliviera describes how the neighborhood was different from the slums of New York City. In North America, the ghettos were formed by the whites seeking refuge from the overpopulation of the city limits. They faced the politics that were enforced by the upper class, dealing with unreasonable housing prices that forced Americans closer to poverty and criminal acts. In a favela, people moved to the area due to the attraction of finding work. They came to the favelas with a purpose of improving their lives, but were faced with the reality of living in an impoverished area.
However the favelas did their best when dealing with the political interests of its inhabitants compared to the ghettos of New York City. Similar to North America, the progressive blacks were the leaders of the impoverished areas, but their rise to what little power they attained was through different methods. “In Brazil much of the progressive black political leadership that achieved political office arose from the community-based movement, while in the United States it arose from the civil rights movement” (pg. 84), according to Oliviera. The issue of equality was not the motivation for the political representation, but rather the need for the lifestyle improvement for the community as a whole.
The main issue of the favela was the survival of the community as a whole. The people performed whatever jobs they could attain, whether they were legal or not, in hopes of one day attaining an appropriate lifestyle.

Soy Cuba

Propaganda through film has always been a significant tool for political leaders since the beginning of the film industry. By highlighting the proper material and degrading the opposition, an audience can be easily influenced. In Soy Cuba (or I Am Cuba in a simple Spanish to English translation), the Russian director, Mikhail Kalatozov depicts the pre-revolutionized Cuba as a capitalist-centric economy, heavily manipulated by the United States. After viewing the distinct chapters of the movie, the nationalist and communist visions for Cuba become apparent to the audience.

According to John Chasteen in Born in Blood and Fire, Cubans’ ideologies were centralized around the notions of nationalism and Marxism, which were in opposition of the America’s presence of capitalism. With the frequent appearance of Marxism in the majority of the Cuban population that did not benefit from the capitalist economy, the Anti-United States attitude began to increase while Fidel Castro slowly gained power through his promises of reform.

While the movie depicts Americans as collecting all the wealth on the island, Susan Eckstein makes note that Cuba was not a poor country. On a ranking system, Cuba is a highly competitive economy in the Latin American region due to the sugar cane production and the budding tourism industry. However, Eckstein clearly states that, “foreign capital, above all United States capital, played a major role both in agriculture and in industry.” The role of the United States in every day Cuban life was borderline dominant before the revolution.

Kalatozov utilizes his movie for a call to nationalism and the removal of capitalism. With the title, Soy Cuba, a sense of citizenship is developed, declining the boundaries of wealth and race. Everyone that felt oppressed by the government regime of the current leader of the time, Batista, should unite in order for Cubans to progress into an independent nation, instead of relying on the United States to dominate the land. According to Alejandro de la Fuente, a sense of unity was a common goal for Cuban reformers, rather than attempting to overthrow the government in individual groups. The idea of unity gave Castro popularity he needed to gain a popular majority favor with Cubans.

The influential material in the film also provided several symbolisms for the case of anti-United States and anti-capitalism. In the first chapter, a young woman would earn her living through entertaining American men. At the climax of the chapter, after she sleeps with the tourist and unwillingly sells her crucifix to the man (due to her small understanding of English), the scene could be interpreted as the United States taking advantage of Cubans. In the final portion of that chapter, the tourist is faced with the reality of poor Cubans, having to search through an underprivileged neighborhood for a way out. However, he turns a blind eye, ignoring the beggars in order to find his own way, symbolizing how the United States was aware of the condition of Cubans but turned a blind eye in order to keep accumulating income.

Gabriela (Best Theme Song Ever)

While romanticized in brilliant, daytime shows, “crimes of passion” were common occurrences in pre-modern areas of the world, such as Latin America in the early 20^th century. Defined on The Free Dictionary website, a “crime of passion” is considered to be “a defendant's excuse for committing a crime due to sudden anger or heartbreak, in order to eliminate the element of ‘premeditation.’” In the film, Gabriela, the idea of “crimes of passion” lays the undertone of the movie’s plot as the relationship between a bar owner, Nacib, and his mistress, Gabriella, begins to heat up during the transition of Latin America towards a progressive future. 

According to Susan Besse, a crime of passion was as public a sight in Latin America before “positivism” occurred in the legislature. Men would normally slaughter an adulterous wife as a rational solution for their situation. Latin American men treasured their pride and reputation far more than their feelings for their wives, exhibiting how the gender role for women was considered to be unequal to that of a man. A primary example of women being considered unequal in the movie is when an adulterous woman gives her secret lover money in order to buy shoes, so that he “may always think of walking all over her.” Women were satisfied with the hegemony between themselves in men, accepting their status as long as they’re provided for in material possessions. In the film, Nacib and his bar patrons agree that a husband is justified in killing his cheating wife, rather than allowing the embarrassment to harm his reputation as a man. As Sueann Caulfield describes, the status of family honor is placed on a pedestal in Latin American society, and wives were used to uphold the status of their husbands. Throughout the film, it is commonly seen for men to take women of a wealthy status as their wives, in order to increase their own status. 

The threat of receiving ridicule from his peers drives men to commit murder against unfaithful wives, exhibiting the failure of a woman’s duty to instill a moral conduct in the men, according to Caulfield. Traditional belief that while the men were the considered to be the more aggressive type gender of the two, it was the responsibility of a woman to teach the indecency of homicide. Thus, when the Colonel murdered his wife in the beginning of the film, the wife could be considered the true criminal of the two for failing to teach her husband that homicide is wrong. 

However, two acts in the film highlight the transition from traditional beliefs in Latin America towards a progressive era. The first, Nacib agrees to marry Gabriela on the basis of love rather than for a wealthier status. While arguing against the idea of marriage beforehand, saying that his mistress had no dowry or authentic citizenship, the bar owner decides he would rather be married to Gabriela because he loves the woman. The second act, at the climax of the film, Nacib does not kill the adulterous Gabriela. The positivism is slowly affecting the Latin American area, as the need to apply justification to murders becomes apparent. The Colonel who earlier slaughtered his wife receives his punishment, while Nacib is not ridiculed for sparing Gabriela.

Just a Random Fact For The Day

I personally feel like crying today. Just sitting in my room, and crying for an exceptionally long time, just because I can. Have you ever had a day like that?