Does The Film 'Venom' Show What Happens When Someone Has A Healthy Relationship With Their Aggression?

A few months ago a friend of mine said that he had watched Venom and that it was a good film. I ended up watching the film with another friend and I thought that it wasn’t too bad.

Shortly after I had watched it I thought that it seemed to lack something, as I found it hard to really connect with the film. After a few hours passed, my focus on what the film was like was replaced by what I thought the film was really about.

Back Down To Earth

The film starts off with a probe crashing down to earth, after it had discovered a comet that was covered in symbiotic life forms. One of the symbiotes ends up taking over a woman and soon takes over other people.

The other three symbiotes end up back at the search facility in San Francisco, and this is when it is discovered that they can’t survive without an oxygen-breathing host. It is around this time that we meet Eddie and his fiancée Anne, who appear to be deeply in love.

The Calm before the Storm

While Eddie it as Anne’s house he has a look through some classified documents that go over what is taking place at the Life Foundation. His fiancée has these documents because she is a lawyer who is preparing to defend the foundation.

When Eddie interviews Charlton he brings up some of the things that he saw on his fiancés laptop. The outcome of this is that both Eddie and Anne are fired from their jobs, which results in the latter ending the relationship.

A Closer Look

Naturally, this hits Eddie hard; not only has he lost his job but his fiancé has also left him. However, even though Eddie is not in a good way, he wasn’t exactly someone who was full of life before.

So, if anything, what has taken place just ends up adding even more pain to his life. His passive nature is exemplified when his neighbour plays a musical instrument loudly, making it impossible for him to sleep, yet he doesn’t do anything.

One Extreme to Another

When Brock goes to the research facility to look for evidence, he notices the woman who he brought a paper from on the street. This doesn’t go to plan, though, as the symbiote that is in her ends up transferring to him.
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Now that Eddie has this parasite in his body, he is no longer someone who will put up with bad behaviour. His being has been taken over and this has given him superhuman powers, powers that human beings are unable to handle.

Back to Normal

Once Eddie has just about destroyed the SWAT team that tried to kill him, Anne takes him to her boyfriend’s office. This is when the parasite is removed from Eddie with the help of an MRI Machine and he then goes back to being a normal human being.

But even though he doesn’t have the same strength, having this parasite in his body has given him more confidence. One thing that emphasises this is when he headbuts one of the security guards.

A Coming Together

Eddie is able to kill the other symbiote and it appears as though the symbiote that was within him has also died. It soon becomes clear that it is still in Eddie; the only difference is that it has now integrated with his being.

Without this parasite, Eddie was weak and when this parasite took over, Eddie was out of control. Now that they have merged with each other, they have the power to do a lot of good in the world.

An Important Process

In the beginning, then, Eddie didn’t have a good relationship with his aggression. This part of him was most likely being directed towards himself via his inner citric, which caused him to be low on confidence, passive and to be depressed.

The next step was for his aggression to be externalised, with this causing him to behave in destructive ways. It was no longer being absorbed by him; his external environment had to deal with it.

Finally, he was able to get to the point where he no longer directed it towards himself and he no longer felt the need to direct it towards others. Through developing a healthy relationship with this side of his nature, he was able to utilise the power within him to become a powerful human being.

Conclusion

Whether or not this is what the writer/s of the film/comic had in mind when they wrote it is something I can’t answer, but this is how I have interpreted it. The aggression within someone is what gives them the energy that they need to really live life.

When this part of them is not integrated, it can cause them to either harm themselves or to harm others, or to alternative between the two. It is usually trauma that causes someone to have an unhealthy relationship with this part of themselves.  

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Oliver JR Cooper
http://www.oliverjrcooper.co.uk