Venom And The Monster Inside Of Us

Today, I've decided to watch Venom (thanks to Tom Hardy who managed to put a hype on the trailer itself) in spite of my skeptical assumption that this movie would be just another blockbuster piece with only blood-gushing-gut-wrenching CGI effects.

For some people who are new to this Marvel story/character, Venom is actually based on the “Lethal Protector” storyline. In those series of comics that was published in 1993, the Life Foundation organization was responsible for creating 5 different symbiotes: Riot, Scream, Lasher, Agony and Phage.

Eddie Brock (portrayed by Tom Hardy) is actually who we mostly are; an ordinary curious journalist, with alien symbiotes controlling his dark, narcissistic demeaning side. But the real question is; do the symbiote controls Brock or unconsciously, Brock is the only who controls the symbiote by feeding it with his dark, repressive motivation and desires? According to Carl Jung, everyone carries a shadow, and the less it is embodied in the individual’s conscious life, the blacker and denser it is. Does that mean we have to embrace our dark side to realize its presence so it won't control us?

Truth be told, the more we repress our desires and forbidden thoughts, the heavier the burden we carry inside our mind. The animalistic urges have led some people to do horrible things, in which they surrender to the power of their own shadow. Depression, increase in suicide rates, murder and bullying, all of these things are the outcome of our baser repressed emotions exploding when there is no proper vessel to channel all of these combined urges.

In Sigmund Freud's psychoanalytic theory of personality, the id is the personality component made up of unconscious psychic energy, which works to fulfill our basic urges, desires and needs. The id operates based on the pleasure principle, which demands immediate gratification of needs. The id is one of the three major components of personality; the id, ego, and superego. The id drives our personality to not only strives in satisfying our most basic urges, many of which are tied directly to survival, it also provides all of the energy necessary to drive personality. It is destructive but also constructive.

The only way to control all of our urges is by channeling them in a constructive manner. To embrace our dark side is to not let it unconsciously control us. To channel these urges in a constructive way is to destroy the destructive outcomes these urges would create in our lives.

To overcome is to become. To become is to not succumb.

After all, we are social animals, and the thing that helps us transcend the raw instincts of our more barbaric, primitive, less evolved, ancestors is our only highly developed interest in pro-social behavior, in which we adapt to socialize and survive in a society that thrive on mediocrity and below-average productivity.

"He who makes a beast out of himself, gets rid of the pain of being a man." - Dr. Samuel Johnson