Violence; and having a healthy fear of it, is part of the built-in response system in our brains used across millennia to keep us alive. Violence across species has been used for mating, evolution, hunting, and defending young or other family/ pack members. However, humans and our big brains have evolved to be at the top of the food chain (despite our severely lacking physical alpha markers). We also developed civilizations that have dulled our instinctual fight or flight (or fight to survive) responses. Therefore, humans also developed the entertainment industry where we can safely seek out all sorts of different experiences with violence.
Above is a snapshot I took while my partner and I partook in viewing the brand-new rendition of a D.C Comics icon, Venom’s: Let there be Carnage. Released in the fall of 2021, Let there be Carnage is a franchised film that has already grossed $456,755,986 worldwide while cashing in at $90,000 in the domestic market opening night (Boxofficemojo, 2021). The film is a sequel to the original film Venom continuing the story of an alien symbiote (Venom) and his host Tom Hardy (Eddie) as they fight to keep the city safe. However, Venom, being the amoeba that he is, accidentally leaves a part of himself behind with convicted cereal killer Cletus Kasady bites Eddie during an interview. This scene is the first scene where we get to meet Carnage (symbiote hosting Kasady).
The colour red is front and center for the viewers of the film. This is important as colour stereotyping, as argued by Hosseinanbadi (2019), is used to differentiate the good guys from bad in films, especially how superhero tropes have historically identified colours such as purple, green, and red with villainous behaviours. Additionally, Atkins (2021) confirms that a large factor of superhero-happy violence or violence for sake of good niches is filled using films such as Let There Be Carnage as violence between a hero and a villain, especially when it involves visual indicators like aliens and prisoners, is universally understood. The Mise en scene of this scene shows the violent intent of the antagonist character of the film. Take for example, how Carnage’s walking direction is lit with fluorescent prison lighting and flashing warning lamps alerting the scrambling prisoners and guards of his already known presence.
The scene’s use of dark blues in the foreground closer to Carnage and leading up the cell block highlights his muscle direction and makes his stature pop out to the viewer as being powerful and intimidating. It’s also noteworthy that the prisoners are dressed in orange, a colour socially accepted to be the shade of incarceration. Orange is also projected onto the cellblock walls, and underneath the industrial metal walkways above- while moonlight coming through a window to the left tells us it is nighttime. Additionally, this snapshot foreshadows the use of the appendages protruding from Carnage’s back as ranged weapons (automatic rifles, auto-pistols, Light Machine Guns etc). This is because through his open center and under his back-arms the viewers can see the prison guards using guns to shower him with bullets. The quality of violence creates anxiety in its audience as the camera inserts shots of prisoners as well as guards being flung through the air like rice at a wedding.
The story is woven through Venom: Let There Be Carnage is of course a purely fictional dance of violet ballet, but the viewers are drawn in by Hollywood movie magic. As Aistrope and Fishel (2020) compare believability in film and connections to our true realities outside of the film “create an existential threat of annihilation” (p.633). Consider the conspiracies dating back hundreds of years about rocket-men and alien life, how about Jeffery Bezos’s Blue Origin space exploration program that just launched a human crew into space in July? For myself and my partner, Venom’s origin story as well as Venom: Let There Be Carnage builds realistic fear that multibillionaires have the potential to flip the world into chaos with the discovery of new knowledge while they launch phallic objects into space.