Milo Around the World

One advertising campaign that I have always found very impressive is that of Milo – a Nestle brand milk beverage with chocolate and malt named after the Greek athlete Milo of Crotona, famous for his strength and power. The most important part of their campaign is the way they make their product seem like an inherent part of the lifestyle of their different markets.

Milo is manufactured and consumed in New Zealand, Australia, Singapore, Malaysia, China, Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam, Hong Kong, Japan, Jamaica, Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago, Chile, Colombia, Peru, Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana, Papua New Guinea, South Africa, sri Lanka, Syria, Taiwan and the UK. This essay will cover the similarities and differences in the promotion in Australia, New Zealand and Malaysia to highlight the way the marketing campaign works in different regions. In all three of these countries, citizens feel that Milo is intrinsic to them and that they are being true citizens by consuming it. The question is how exactly Milo accomplishes this in their advertising.

In New Zealand, Milo is seen as an essential part of childhood – it is a staple for every school camp, every sport event, every family camping holiday and it is a popular breakfast drink as well as a bed time snack. New Zealanders grow up with Milo in all shapes and forms – as well as the standard hot or cold Milo with milk, there are also Milo milkshakes, Milo on toast, Milo on ice cream and Milo straight from the tin on a spoon. In New Zealand, Nestle has strongly associated Milo with local, regional and international level cricket teams and local rugby and netball teams through sponsorship and promotion. These sports are very ‘Kiwi’ and are played by a large proportion of New Zealand’s young people. This fits with the overall image that they maintain which puts them as a vital part of an active, outdoors lifestyle. Their advertisements follow this by showing ‘Kiwi kids’ out and about, and refueling on Milo. Aside from the very obvious element of cricket – a popular sport in New Zealand – it also bears a little silver fern, a New Zealand icon, in the bottom left corner. Television advertisements follow the same vein with active young people living the stereotypical New Zealand lifestyle, narrated by a very strong New Zealand accent. For New Zealanders, Milo is an icon of New Zealandness.

This is where Nestle gets tricky. Australians grow up believing the exact same thing about Milo in their country. A current competition campaign asks ‘When do you Milo?’ This assumption of nationwide consumption gives Milo the status of a national icon. Australia has the advantage of actually being the original home of Milo, but they believe that Milo is a product particular to Australia. Milo is affiliated with cricket and netball at a local and regional level through sponsorship, and it supports an active lifestyle in young people. They subtly tie Milo to Australian pride in their commercials by using a lot of green and gold (Australia’s national colours) and using Australian narrators. They provide a video on their website of Vox Pops asking ‘When do Aussies drink Milo?’ and the interviewees wear green and gold, drape the Australian flag around themselves, have Australian flag transfers on their faces, speak in strong accents and are outside, being active and enjoying the sweet Australian sunshine. And all these fiercely proud and stereotypical Australians love Milo.

To contrast with Australia and New Zealand’s use of Milo, I looked at Malaysia, the country with the highest Milo consumption in the world. They, too, focus on the idea of an active lifestyle, but the sports they promote are popular Malaysian sports – football, fencing and hidup bola. There is also heavy emphasis on traditionally desirable characteristics in Asians and how sport and Milo can help develop these in children. There is a definite feeling of national pride in Milo consumption, and the website even claims that ‘it was MILO® that coined the nation’s battle cry "Malaysia Boleh!" and kindled the national spirit of achieving the impossible.’ A television commercial for Milo in Malaysia features young people engaging in sports like diving, bowling, badminton and gymnastics – all sports for which Malaysia is known - and more importantly, there is a large group of children unfurling a huge Malaysian flag. Milo did not even reach Malaysia until 1950, but they have adopted it as a drink of national pride in the same way as New Zealand and Australia.

The websites for the three countries are very similar – they all bear the signature green colour and the Milo logo, and show children being active. The similarities make it a recognisable brand, no matter where you are in the world, but it is the differences that make it such a success in the countries in which it is available. By actively supporting sports that are important to the different nations, they are integrating themselves at a grassroots level, and this integration filters upwards into higher levels of sports, and outwards into other aspects of life. They constantly reference icons and ideas of nationality in their advertisements which makes them seem like an integral part of national pride. They implement small but key details, for example, on the Australian website a recipe calls for ‘reduced fat milk’, but the New Zealand equivalent requires ‘trim milk’. This attention to detail and representations of national pride gives Milo its status as the drink of choice for New Zealand, Australia and Malaysia, as well as several other countries around the world.

Nestlé’s Milo campaign is incredibly successful because it integrates itself at a basic level of society and works with communities in its target market. By making itself synonymous with sports and active leisure it becomes a natural choice for people who want to be a part of that lifestyle and is the first thing people reach for – for themselves or their children. It also becomes an icon of home, and something that is, to the consumer, inherently ‘Kiwi’, ‘Aussie’ or ‘Malay’.

Cinema and Auckland: Dominance and Resistance in Media

Auckland is a small city by global standards, but New Zealand’s biggest, and its huge diversity means it is where most of New Zealand’s identity struggles take place. Auckland is mostly white, with large Maori and Pasifika populations, and a growing Asian immigrant population, as well as residents from the rest of the world. The most common language is English, but Maori is the second official language and Asian and Pacific languages are commonly heard. Auckland is divided into four major administrative departments – Auckland, North Shore, Waitakere, and Manukau; but to city residents, it becomes The Shore, East, ‘Souf’ Auckland and West Auckland. When an outsider thinks of Auckland City, the dominant images that arise are central Auckland. But Auckland is a large, diverse city. It has wild and beautiful coastline, and pastoral hills. To the west there are rugged beaches and mountain ranges, and to the east there is a harbour scattered with volcanoes. It has city, suburbs and farmland, as well as tiny islands a short boat ride away, and every area has its own unique character. This whole area is referred to as Auckland Region, so this essay will focus on urban areas, specifically those areas known as Central Auckland and South Auckland, and how different minority groups in these areas use the media as a platform for their battles of domination and resistance.

The struggle for recognition in Auckland is, as everywhere, fought throughout the media – from film, television and radio to graffiti, music and street fronts. Each of the areas that this essay will discuss has its own channels of representation such as musical styles, recognisable pieces of art and movies which find their home in the suburbs of Auckland. There is, of course, a recognisably dominant visual culture which maintains its hegemony in Auckland, and this essay will examine the ways in which minority groups use visual culture to fight for recognition and acceptance.

It seems important, in writing an essay about Auckland, to first explain the relationship Auckland has with the rest of New Zealand, and perhaps the best way to do that is to explain Jafas. A Jafa is a slang term (usually offensive) for one who lives in Auckland, meaning ‘Just Another Fucking Aucklander’. Everyone inside Auckland attributes its use to a jealousy about their resources, wealth and power, but those outside of Auckland uses this term out of a dislike of Auckland’s overrepresentation in politics, distribution of national funds and recognition overseas, and the belief that Aucklanders are generally rude and stuck up. They see Auckland as having deliberately geographically separated themselves from the rest of the country with the Bombay Hills; being full of arrogant people and unnecessarily large cars; and being generally ignorant about the rest of New Zealand. One of the key problems the rest of New Zealand has with Auckland is its huge immigrant population; because the main international airport is Jean Batten in Auckland, many immigrants simply stop in Auckland and many New Zealanders in other parts of the country feel that this makes Auckland a poor representative of New Zealand. Luckily, Aucklanders are pretty thick skinned and have now appropriated the term jafa and use it ironically, or with new meanings such as ‘Just Another Friendly Aucklander’ or ‘Jesus Always Favours Aucklanders’. All this means that Auckland as a city is relatively isolated from the rest of New Zealand.

Central Auckland seems an appropriate place to begin discussion of domination and resistance of groups in the area. Auckland Central is mostly white, mostly affluent and either working in the city, or attending school nearby. This area of Auckland comprises two large universities, a huge central library, upmarket bars and restaurants along the Viaduct, several different shopping centres including designer boutiques, vintage hipster stores and chain stores, many souvenir shops, apartment buildings, sky scrapers, heavy traffic and the beginnings of the more well-off suburbs. It is this Auckland which is portrayed in the long running soap opera ‘Shortland Street’ about Shortland Street Hospital . This program, which began in 1992, is the longest running New Zealand made television show, and is easily the most widely seen, therefore arguably the most dominant, visual representation of Auckland Central. This representation would have us believe that Auckland City is largely made up of educated white people with high paying medical jobs and under educated ethnic minorities, especially Maori and Pacific Islanders, who need their services. It would also have us believe that car explosions and thwarted weddings are a regular occurrence, and this is a key sign that we must look further for authentic representation of minorities in Auckland City. Another source of hegemonic media in Auckland City is Metro Magazine – a glossy upper class monthly lifestyle magazine which features articles such as ‘Best Schools’ (it could be called ‘The Three Most Expensive Private Schools in Auckland’), ‘Detox Confidential’ and ‘Winter Fashion, Winter Getaways and the Best of the Film Fest’ . The cover stars are more often than not white and wealthy looking, and with a cover price of $9.50, it is clear that it is targeting a certain demographic.

As far as resistance of minorities through visual culture goes, the Asian population of Central Auckland has appropriated a huge amount of ‘eyeball time’ through restaurants and shop fronts with Asian writing and images, festivals and simply by looking ethnically different on the street. Asian immigrants are officially welcomed because of a perception of good work ethic and business knowledge, and this is very noticeable in downtown Auckland. Many Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Thai restaurants, with their recognisably different language have sprung up; several 123 Dollar stores owned and heavily influenced by Asians exist downtown; and most of the souvenir stores are Asian owned and run. Unfortunately, because of the very alien visual culture of Asia and the high density of immigrants in downtown Auckland, they are portrayed in the dominant media as ‘taking over’, for example, prominent politician Winston Peters released a pamphlet titled ‘Whose Country is it Anyway?’ which incorrectly claimed that hundreds of thousands of Asians are immigrating to Auckland and causing problems such as traffic in Auckland. According to this pamphlet these immigrants are both poor enough to prey on the welfare system, and wealthy enough to drive up the cost of housing . Another example of negative representation of Asian immigrants in central Auckland was an article by Deborah Coddington entitled ‘Asian Angst: is it time to send some back?’ published in the upmarket Auckland based magazine ‘North and South’ in November 2006. This article suggested that with the influx of Asian immigrants comes a wave of crime, ‘from a few uppity, wealthy boy racers to highly organised and ruthless criminals seemingly prepared to do anything for big profit. It's capitalism at play, crime following market forces, and currently the market is bullish in class-A drugs, poached paua, fraud, prostitution and, to a lesser extent, extortion’ and with that wave of crime, a huge cost to the New Zealand taxpayer. Obviously, this article caused a huge outrage, and North and South printed an apology in a later edition, but the words were already out there. Anti-Asian sentiments like this leave Asian immigrants in Central Auckland in the position of a weaker minority and force them into a resistant position. Not a lot of Asian media makes it anywhere near mainstream or prime time, so Asians must use the visual culture of the street to resist the negative representation of their culture. A fantastic example of positive use of the visual culture of Asia is the lantern festival in downtown Auckland every year. This year, 2010, 240,000 Aucklanders enjoyed ‘a leading Shanghai music ensemble, Mongolian throat singers, rolling lantern folk dancers from South China as well as Lantern making masters and other artists’ . This use of the street as a location for visual resistance to the dominant media is important to the Asian community of Auckland because it means that instead of the usual isolation of their distinct visual culture, they use this festival to include all the citizens of Auckland – Young Leader Elizabeth Chan commented that
‘Princes Street was ablaze with activity as people jostled with one another, trying to get into lines to taste laksa noodles, fried dumplings, spring rolls, kebabs and all the other tempting Asian delicacies on offer... Hon Phillip Burdon made the opening speech, celebrating Asia:NZ’s efforts in making the lantern festival possible and encouraging us to continue promoting New Zealanders’ knowledge of Asian culture’
By making vibrant and beautiful aspects of their culture accessible and welcoming to all citizens of Auckland City, the Asian community is combating the negative views the city holds about them.

A second area of Auckland this essay will discuss is South Auckland, an area stereotyped as low income and high crime. It is also, however, multicultural, vibrant and colourful, and most people who live there love calling it home. A study of young Maori people showed that although they were
‘clear in their awareness that most outsiders saw South Auckland in a negative light and...expressed the view that South Auckland was seen as a ‘tough’ place where violence, crime and poverty were part of the profile’ they ‘had very positive feelings about living in south Auckland and...tended to focus on connections to two general domains, the physical environment and the people in South Auckland. Underpinning such talk was the notion that South Auckland was home and they had a strong sense of belonging to and familiarity with the area’ .
South Auckland has the largest youth population in New Zealand, and proportionally an even higher population of Maori and Pacific youth, and with this young ethnic minority demographic based in an underprivileged area comes the obvious and observable problems of youth gangs, violent crime, larceny, street fighting and vandalism, and more subtly, the issue of the perpetual negative representation of brown youth in the media. Especially in the news media, this group of ‘brown youth’ is represented over and over again as inherently dangerous and criminal, and because the news is ideologically powerful, this representation becomes innate and eternal, and impossible to rewrite. Bomber, a respected Auckland media figure, commented that ‘the mainstream media make money from crime stories especially when those crime stories confirm the stereotypes we have of other races. Young brown youth beating the shit out of one another rates because it confirms the suspicions white NZ seem to have about brown NZ’ . One only has to look at the South Auckland based stories of ‘The New Zealand Herald’ with headlines such as Teen jailed for mother of three's manslaughter , Youth target in knife-crime review , and Eight youths charged over Tuakau police assault dominating the news to see how South Auckland youth are portrayed. As difficult as it already is for anyone to resist the hegemony of the news industry, South Auckland youth have the additional problem of being materially disadvantaged, being an ethnic minority and being young and therefore patronised and disrespected by the adults in their community and around Auckland – those who hold the power. How, then, are the youth of South Auckland meant to resist the dominant media image of themselves? The Black Friars are a music and comedy group made up of South Auckland youth who speak up about growing up in South Auckland and what it meant to them to be young and brown in a disadvantaged area.
For a long time, Vau [a member] says, the key South Auckland issues have been the same: violence and gang violence. "But to only focus on these things in both private and public spheres is to disregard all of the beauty, passion and talent that come out of South Auckland. People are too quick to judge and to stereotype."When the media focuses only on the negative, they miss the whole point, and they misrepresent what we, as a community, are all about. Sure, there might be gangs...but there is a huge and prevailing sense of community and family that exists in South Auckland that you will not find anywhere else. The media are more and more interested in the negative side of everything - they would rather shock their readers than give them a true picture of the world we live in.”

The group uses their music and comedy to speak out about their love for South Auckland, and the community they grew up in, and they use the respect garnered by their performances to help young people growing up in South Auckland. Not only are they a positive role model for youth in their community, they are also a positive new face for South Auckland focused media. Another alternate media voice that South Auckland’s brown youth have acquired is ‘bro’Town’, a primetime cartoon set in the fictional suburb of Morningside which follows the adventures of The Boys – Jeff da Maori, Valea and Vale (brothers), Mack and Sione. Created by a group of South Auckland based actors, entertainers and producers called the Naked Samoans, this program takes all the stereotypes about South Auckland and puts them all together in one place to make them laughable. Not only does it claim (through the character of God, who is Polynesian here) that Morningside is ‘a town where the children of the world frolic freely together, because no matter what ethnic group you’re from, young people are the same all over the world’ (thereby re-humanising brown youth) but it also helps to lay responsibility for South Auckland at the feet of the adults by portraying characters like Dad, Valea and Vale’s father, whose catchphrase is ‘I’m going to the pub... I may be some time’ and Constable Bababiba who can only communicate with The Boys through the use of his ‘smack smack stick’ . There is debate about whether ‘bro’Town’ merely reinforces South Auckland’s stereotypes by representing characters through the eyes of the dominant media but it can also be argued that the positive representation of South Auckland and its brown youth (especially in contrast to other areas of Auckland such as the racist ‘White Boys Grammar School’) is a resistance to the dominant news culture and its negative portrayal of South Auckland.

In Central and South Auckland, minority and excluded groups such as Asian immigrants and Maori/ Polynesian youth are portrayed negatively in the media, especially news media. Because of their lack of voice in the mainstream and traditional media, they are forced to revert to more ‘street’ mediums to challenge the dominant views about them. While the Asian population uses festivals to educate and include others in aspects of their culture, brown youth turn to music and comedy to give themselves a way to tell their story in their own words.




Works Cited
Asia:NZ Online. Chinese Lantern Festival. 2010. 9 April 2010

Bannister, Mathew. “Where's Morningside? Locating bro'Town in the ethnic genealogy of
New Zealand/ Aotearoa.” New Zealand Journal of Media Studies 11.1 (2008):1-15.

Black Friars. 10 April 2010

Bomber. TUMEKE. 2010. 9 April 2010 <>

Borell, Belinda. “Livin’ in the City Ain’t So Bad: Cultural Diversity of South Auckland
Rangatahi.” Diss. Massey University, 2005.

bro’Town. 9 April 2010

Chan, Elizabeth. A Roaring Start to the Year. 2010. 10 April 2010

Cheng, Derek. “Youth target in knife crime review.” New Zealand Herald 12 March 2010.

Coddington, Deborah. “Asian Angst: is it time to send some back?” North and South Magazine November 2006.

Eriksen, Alanah May and Edward Gay. “Eight youths charged over Tuakau police assault.” New Zealand Herald 23 February 2010.

“Go Home Stay Home.” Bro’Town. TV3. October 27, 2004.

Koubaridis, Andrew. “Teen jailed for mother of three’s manslaughter.” New Zealand Herald 18 March 2010.

Metro Live. 10 April 2010.

Ministry of Social Development. Nesian Pride. 8 April 2010

Pritchard, Ashley. “The Folly of Looking Only in the Mirror.” Diss. Lehigh University, 2008.

“Season One Trailer.” Bro’Town. TV3. 2004.

TVNZ. Shortland Street. 2010. 10 April 2010

Violence versus choice: representations of power in The City of God

The film City of God engages the critical problem of the representation of power through violence and how it is contrasted with the representation of power through choice, that is, empowering oneself by making the difficult but ‘better’ or ‘right’ choices. This essay will argue that the scene directly before the final battle between the gangs juxtaposes the two different kinds of power, and will show, through close textual analysis of mis en scene, sounds and cinematography, that it forces embodiments of different kinds of power to face each other.

City of God (Cidade de Deus) is a Portuguese film made in 2002 about a housing estate in Rio de Janeiro of the same name. The City of God is where the Brazilian government sends the poor and the homeless to avoid dealing with their problems and preserve the picture postcard image of Rio de Janeiro, and it is one of the most dangerous places in the country. This film tells the stories of some of these characters through the eyes of a single narrator, the young Rocket, a poor fisherman’s son. Rocket claims he is too scared to join the gangs that plague the city, and instead discovers a talent for photography which offers him an escape, and offers us a way to see his world. Across three decades, violence reigns, and the struggle for power controls the city.

The key problem which is explored is the issue of power and how it is acquired, and represented on screen. Gerbner et al. argue that on screen ‘violence is the key to the rule of power. It is the cheapest and quickest dramatic demonstration of who can and who cannot get away with what against whom.’[1] Goffman states that ‘society is organized on the principle that any individual who possesses certain social characteristics has a moral right to expect that others will value and treat him in an appropriate way.’[2] We can apply this to film where characters who act in a particular way (here, violence) ‘expect to and likely will be treated with respect and a degree of deference to the ‘power’ implicit in their behaviour’.[3] The most obvious way that characters wield power in City of God is through aggression and violence; the most feared gangster, Lil Ze, holds court in an atmosphere of fear and brutality, and criminality runs rampant in this city because ‘crime is associated with power’.[4] The problem of this representation of power is that, without analysis, it seems to be the overriding force; it seems to be the only way to fight and win in the City of God. Michel Foucault speaks of power as being defined by forms of resistance to it[5], and in this situation we could argue that the two representations of power in City of God stand as opposition to each other. Each of the opposing groups must actively take up one form of power; they are ‘subjects who are faced with a field of possibilities in which several ways of behaving... may be realised’.[6] We must acknowledge that it is a choice in itself to assert power through violence, but in this film it is viewed as a passive choice, while the decision to take a different path is an active one.

This pursuit of power through violence is juxtaposed, albeit subtly, with power through choice. Rocket, who actively chooses not to join the gangs, to focus instead on his photography and look for a way out of the City, is seen at the end as the one character that is empowered by his actions. His choices are often not the easy ones, he chooses a path quite different from all the other characters in the film, but because he makes the choice and takes action against his environment, he finds true power. Although this is not proved in the scene analysed, directly afterwards we see that by the grace of his choice not to be involved in the gangs, Rocket is one of the few who escapes the battle with his life.

The scene just before the final battle between the gangs is very interesting in terms of this issue of power. It comes at the climax of the film – the gang war has reached epic proportions and we have just seen Ze handing out guns to little kids, arming them to fight on his side. In the scene just before this, a huge feast is being prepared and the chicken, guessing its fate, escapes and runs away. The gang is chasing it when they run into Rocket. This scene encompasses the ideas of power through violence versus power through choice in the mis en scene, cinematography and sound.

This scene begins with a shot of a chicken running to escape being crushed by a truck, then cuts to Rocket and his friend walking and talking about Lil Ze. This is immediately followed by Lil Ze’s gang appearing on the street in pursuit of the chicken. The first key shot is a close up on Lil Ze holding up a gun - the shot becomes slow motion and sound all mutes out. These elements, the close up, the slow motion and the silence all combine to give this character significance, and more importantly, power. This shot is followed with a similar one of Rocket – an extreme close up with muted sound – but his facial expression of concern makes him a less powerful character. The camera cuts back to a wide angle shot of the gang who are all armed and taking up the whole street and almost the whole frame. Their guns, confident swagger and sheer numbers give them a sense of power. A few seconds later, the police show up, and the scene turns into a standoff between the gang and the police. Rocket is shown as being caught between the two figures of power by physically being placed between them on the street. These shots could be read in two ways. Since both the police and the gang are armed, we could say that Rocket was caught between two representations of violent power; or we could say that Rocket was caught between the criminality and violent power of his birthright and the power of choosing to escape and live a better life as represented by the police.

The longest shot in this scene is arguably also the most important, because it clearly articulates the problem in the film by drawing attention to the difference between the symbols for violent power and for the power of choice. The shot starts at a mid shot of Rocket, tracking around him to rest on the gang, blurring in and out of focus, then back to Rocket and around him to the police. It tracks back around to Rocket and focuses on his camera, with the gang out of focus in the background. Not only does this clearly place Rocket in a position of opposition to the gang (and arguably the police) but the focus on his camera is important because it is lending weight to the idea of his asserting power by choosing a different life. The shots following this alternate between the gang posing with their weapons and close ups of Rocket setting up his camera to take a picture. The way these shots are set up place huge emphasis on Rocket and his camera, the focus on his camera almost representing him making a choice as we see him look at the gang, then at his camera, then at the gang through the camera. This could be seen as Rocket weighing his choices, then, choosing the camera, taking a last look back at his old life from the perspective of his new life. Most of the sound in these scenes is muted, making the visuals of huge importance, and the shot tracks the camera as Rocket lifts it to his face. In these shots, Rocket has all the power; all we see is him, all we hear is the clicking of his camera as he adjusts it. The gang poses for the photo, Rocket presses the shutter... This shot, and the one following it are of vital importance because as soon as we hear the click of the camera, it cuts to a shot of the gang and there is a moment of confusion as we see a boy stumble backwards, hurt, before we realise that the crack we heard came from a gun. It is in this moment that the symbols of the two different types of power are inextricably linked – the click of a camera shutter is almost imperceptible from the gunshot – and this seems momentarily to give Rocket’s camera the same power as a gun.

This scene is an illustrative commentary on the problem of representations of power through violence and representations of power through choice. To the casual observer, the only representation of power in this scene is through violence – the gang of aggressive kids with guns seem to be in control of the scene. However, in the context of the whole film, and with close textual analysis, this scene takes on a second representation of power – the power of choice. The mis en scene is clever in the way it sets the characters up, showing their position in the issue, and the props it arms the characters with provide symbols for their type of power (camera versus guns). This scene encourages the ideology that power lies in force and brutality in the way that the gang is shown as stronger, louder and better armed, until the end when it is the boy with the camera that presses the button and the boy with the gun who is shot.

This dichotomy of power is not an unfamiliar one, by any means. It is an ideological battle which is waged across all genres and nationalities of films. Another example of a film which deals with the representation of power both through violence and through choice is New Zealand’s Once Were Warriors. This dark and brutal film focuses on the Heke family and the power struggle between Jake ‘The Muss’ Heke, a drunkard who controls his family through violence and fear, and his wife Beth who stays with her husband despite the abuse. Jake is feared by all, respected by some and loved by none as the only way he understands power is through brutality. In the end Beth finally makes the choice to leave Jake and takes back the power that she lost through years of abuse. ‘One of the film’s principle themes is Beth’s desire to break free of her predicament. Jake remains a slave to his self destructive behaviours, but his wife finds a way out.’[7] Once again we see the conflict between power through violence and power through choice – although the violent power is more clearly expressed, it is the power of choice which yields the greatest results.

The problem of representation of power in film is an important one, because without careful analysis, we only see the obvious assertion of power through violence – we must look closer to see that true empowerment comes through the power of choice. City of God with its constant struggle for dominance is a perfect example of this since violence seems to rule until the end when it is the character that makes the active choice to walk away from that option who survives.

Bibliography

Bordwell, David, and Kristin Thompson, Film Art. New York: McGraw Hill, 2008.

Eschholz, Sarah and Jana Bufkin, “Crime in the Movies: Investigating the Efficacy of Measures of Both Sex and Gender for Predicting Victimization and Offending in Film,” Sociological Forum 16, no. 4 (2001): 655-676

City of God. DVD. Directed by Fernando Meirelles. 2002; Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Miramax, 2003.

Foucault, Michel. Michel Foucault: Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics. Edited by Hubert L. Dreyfus and Paul Rabinow. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983.

Gerbner, G., L. Gross, N. Signorielli, and M. Morgan, "Television violence, victimization, and power," American Behavioral Scientist 23, no. 5 (1980): 705-716.

Goffman, E. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. New York: Anchor Books, 1959.

Gump, James O. “Review of: Once Were Warriors,” The American Historical Review 100, no. 4 (1995): 1217-1219

Messerschmidt, J. Capitalism, Patriarchy and Crime. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 1986.

---

[1]G. Gerbner, L. Gross, N. Signorielli, and M. Morgan, "Television violence, victimization, and power," American Behavioral Scientist 23, no. 5 (1980): 708.

[2] E. Goffman, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. (New York: Anchor Books, 1959), 13.

[3] Sarah Eschholz and Jana Bufkin, “Crime in the Movies: Investigating the Efficacy of Measures of Both Sex and Gender for Predicting Victimization and Offending in Film,” Sociological Forum 16, no. 4 (2001): 658

[4] J. Messerschmidt, Capitalism, Patriarchy and Crime (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 1986), 44.

[5] Michel Foucault, Michel Foucault: Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics, ed. Hubert L. Dreyfus and Paul Rabinow (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983), 211

[6] ibid., 221

[7] James O. Gump “Review of: Once Were Warriors,” The American Historical Review 100, no. 4 (1995): 1218