The men who cry, the women who vanish:

a gendered reading of the Brazilian film City of God (2002)

Abstract

This article offers a gender-focused reading of the acclaimed Brazilian film City of God (2002), arguing that it can be understood as reflecting a crisis of masculinity as much as – or even more than – depicting slum life. Set during Brazil’s military dictatorship, the film portrays violence as a performative tool used to assert and preserve hegemonic masculinity, especially through its dominant, emotionally repressed male characters. A key focus of this article is the absence of the transgender character Ana Flamengo, who is central to the source novel but entirely omitted from the film adaptation. This omission highlights how the adaptation emphasises social transformations tied to urban “favelisation” and state-led displacement, but notably overlooks critical issues of gender and sexuality, particularly in its representation of women. Through close textual and visual analysis, the article demonstrates how the film constructs masculinity as both performative and fragile, which exposes emotional vulnerability even in its most feared male figures. These findings underscore the film’s ongoing relevance to contemporary debates on masculinity, trans erasure, and the politics of cinematic representation more than two decades after its release.