I was thinking about Venom this morning before breakfast, like you do, and I keep coming back to how baffled I am that Venom, and apparently everyone else in Eddie’s life, thinks he’s a loser.
I sort of get why, in a Hollywood way, they might. He’s in a bad situation for most of the movie outside of the fact that he has an alien up his ass. But Eddie was a successful journalist with a significant viewership, engaged to a lawyer, an attractive man with a nice house; he’s clearly intelligent and well-educated. And yes, he does a stupid thing and betrays his fiancee’s trust and gets her fired, and she (quite rightly) dumps him. And he ends up living in a shitty apartment without career prospects because a rich guy fucked him over, eating crap food, trying to hustle work, and giving money he can’t afford to people who have an even shittier situation than him.
But the movie seems to equate poverty with loserdom, because Eddie is still the intelligent, educated, fundamentally decent person who believes in justice that he was before he fucked up. He’s just an intelligent, educated, fundamentally decent, justice-loving guy who fucked up once and now has no money.
And I realized, Eddie isn’t a loser.
Eddie is a Millennial.
Millenials are stuck living in a crap apartment, eating crap food, with shitty job prospects through no fault of their own.
Eddie Brock wound up in that situation himself. He went after Drake without credible sources. Of course that was going to get him fired. And of course no other publication was going to hire him with it being known he goes off half-cocked without sources. He used his fiancée and got her fired.
Yes, he was right about Drake. And yes, Drake got him fired but honestly Drake didn’t need to be a part of that equation. If he had credible sources to back his claims that convo would’ve gone differently. Otherwise, why did his boss even bother asking what his sources were?
Eddie has a heart of gold, there’s no doubt about that. But there’s more than enough evidence in the film to demonstrate that the dude has some maturing to do. He treated his fiancée really badly (and it is implied more than once that she’s struggled with being with him but put up with it because she loved him). He can’t remember to feed a cat. He tries to take down a respected and well-liked billionaire with zero credible sources to back his claims up. He can’t take responsibility for his own part in his downfall, he wants to blame Drake for everything. Anne even called him out on that. And when he does finally apologize to her he still doesn’t really seem to understand what he did wrong.
What happened to Eddie was more than him making one mistake. I wouldn’t even call what he did a mistake. He willfully chose to break his fiancée’s trust to get the drop on Drake. It was a choice he should’ve known full well would have consequences for himself AND Anne. He did it anyway because he wanted so badly to take Drake down.
His politeness, his sense of justice, the way he treats homeless people, all of his good traits … those don’t erase his bad ones. And he does have bad traits, none of them being “millenial.” I wouldn’t call him a loser. But he does do some pretty loser things.
(tags: silver-89)
Yes to all this. I really like the way the film holds the line on Anne and Eddie’s relationship – it skates close to very common competent woman/useless dude tropes, but absolutely refuses to fall into them. In their first scene, Anne waking Eddie up, she repeatedly reminds him to feed the cat – because he needs to pull his weight domestically, and neither she nor the film think that “adorable manchild needs woman to take care of him” is acceptable.
Eddie taking material from Anne’s computer is absolutely framed as a conscious betrayal of trust.When he finds the email, the cat is prowling around, and Eddie shushes it – he knows he’s doing something he shouldn’t, that Anne would stop him if she knew. He’s knowingly crossing a line.
And the film keeps reminding us of that. When Drake taunts Eddie, it’s the betrayal of Anne that he fixes on. When Dan praises Eddie’s work (subverting the “ex’s new boyfriend is an idiot” trope), he exclaims that Eddie has “taken down” some impressive bad people. Anne replies, “I was one of them”. As silver89 points out, she also explicitly reminds Eddie that this was not Drake’s fault, this was his. The film won’t let Eddie’s behaviour slide, and I love that about it.
The one thing I see differently to silver89 is the apology to Anne. I can’t remember the exact wording, but I really like that it shows Eddie correcting himself – he starts with something like “whatever I did”, which is a crappy non-apology that doesn’t take responsibility. But then he stops and says, “I’m sorry I hurt you”, which does acknowledge both her hurt and his agency: he did this. I’m not sure that he fully understands all the ways he’s at fault, but he’s not ducking out of it any more.
I like that the film shows this as a process – Venom nudging Eddie into the apology, and Eddie learning to take responsibility by doing that.
good post
I’m really excited that someone looked at that scene from a journalistic point of view. Eddie should have known/recognized that a lot of the shit he was pulling in his attempted to take down Drake were either unethical or 100% gonna get him fired.
Looking in Anne’s email? Holy Hell unethical, probably illegal, but his paper might have published anyways claiming the documents were leaked by an anonymous source. Mostly bc this is a movie and they do stuff like that in movies when it’s a big story.
In real life tho, you would need more sources than that- double what you would usually have since it was a big story. You just have to check all the facts to make sure no one is lying to you. Like theres a saying amongst journalists, “if your mother tells you she loves you, check it out.” Meaning you need to fact check and be certain of every detail you publish, NOTHING can be assumed. So having an anonymous source on a story this big and not telling your editor about it? And still moving forward? Yeah my dude was super fired.
Lastly springing that interview on Drake was also a journalistic no-go, and also would be part if the reason he got fired. As a general rule, planning an interview under the pretense it’s going to be about one thing and then start questioning your subject about something else is not only unethical, it’s also ineffective and bad business. First of all its unethical to lie about your intentions behind an interview. The only exception would be when you’re doing an expose and you know they would never agree if they knew the real reason for the interview. Eddie wasn’t wrong about this part, he did in fact have a serious enough story to break this rule, but he didnt clue in his editor or anything which is 100% enough to get you fired. Mostly bc of reason #2 journalists dont this: the subject is gonna hate you for it and never interview with your publication again, which would have been a problem for his publication since Drake was so high profile. Lastly it’s an ineffective strategy for getting information most of the time. Generally, surprise interviews are only good for getting reactions, not for getting answers. A public official may not be able to rattle off the exact amount of money that was collected through taxes at any given moment. But if they are about to be interviewed about taxes, usually they will look stats like that up before the interview so they can accurately answer the question. As an audience, we knew Drake was behind all this. But that doesnt change the fact that Eddie didnt know that.
TLDR: Eddie did an interview he knew was only going to get him a reaction and zero answers, based on a single source (which he was unwilling to identify or provide) and without the approval of his editors. He did so knowing it would destroy the trust between Drake, a high profile and newsworthy individual, and his publication which might cost them the future interviews.
Eddie I love you, but you got prove where your shit came from before you throw it into the fan.
I do think there’s something deeply relatable about the “make one (1) mistake and it catastrophically fucks up your entire life” part of the story. That’s a feature of life under neoliberal capitalism (and life in poverty at all times) that most of us instinctively recognize: the idea that there is zero room to fuck up and any kind of stability you have can be gone in a flash through poor life choices or just bad luck.
But I also like that the movie is clear that it is Eddie’s mistake, not just Drake being a shithead. (I wrote in another post that Eddie’s recurring problem in the first act of the movie is impulse control–which is why glueing him to a giant ball of id is so great, cause suddenly he has to be the more responsible one.) We see Eddie being both a bad journalist and a bad boyfriend, and there are consequences. Over the course of the movie it doesn’t all magically get fixed, but you can see Eddie making an effort to be a better person.
the new batch of love for john mulaney here on tumblr has got me thinking how critical costume design is once again. john mulaney is a good comedian, but so much of his power comes from how his humor plays off how he’s dressed. we don’t expect a man dressed like a 1960s news announcer, all clean scrubbed and tight-wound professional, to describe in minute detail the visit where a doctor shoved a hand up his ass. imagine any iconic john mulaney set but given in jeans and a t-shirt, and is it as funny? i don’t think so. his humor spreads like wildfire on this website because the image of a man in a buttoned-up shirt and a tie and slicked back hair with fairly narrow lapels on his three-piece suit is fucking hysterical when paired with “years later I’d be in college about to go down on some
rockin’ twink and i’d be like what would leonard bernstein do”
well I do recall a comedian telling about how he accidentally joined the russian mafia on a school trip in college, and this was made more believable by the fact that he was shirtless with a beer belly while telling this story
Cursor*10 – little game where you have several “lives”. you use your cursor to navigate the floors, and when the time runs out, you go back to the beginning. however, the previous cursors will go through the same path they made before, thus allowing you to get further each time.
Daymare Town – creepy point and click game. very inky, interesting drawings. you have to find your way through (or perhaps out of) Daymare Town, which is inhabited by obscure prickly people.
Grid Game – there are a bunch of little circles. click one, and watch it rotate and set off a chain reaction. mindless distraction game.
Samsara Room – a strange escape game where you’re stuck in one room but pass through different dimensions to get out
Feed the Head – more like interactive art than anything. there are several different things to do in this game.
Factory Balls – a bit of a puzzle game. you have to paint a bunch of balls to match the model shown, using various options and paints.
Grow Nano Vol. 3 – one of my favorites of the Grow series. you have to click the options in the right order in order to make the sick person feel better. this one just warms my heart.
make sure to click the tags to find more games by the creators and companies and the rest of the games in the series!!!
I find Tonypa’s games to be simple, unique, and enjoyable. A lot of them involve patterns, colors, and matching, so they’re very calming as well.
some from me!!
deep thinking games with exploration themes…
6 differences – a pretty cool find the difference game that’s very atmospheric and somewhat soothing in the first levels, mostly takes place at night around a city, features sound effects and music and even moving cars down the highways. content warning for some surrealism and acid-trippy effects in the later levels (a person with a deer head, some kind of alarming music, the level’s walls moving as you look for the differences, etc – sometimes the level changes after you find all but one clue, and in one instance a train goes by rather suddenly and loudly, but it didn’t make me jump and i am sensitive to jump scares)
i can hold my breath forever – a game about exploring underwater caves in search of a friend. some references to drowning!
i wish i were the moon – short and sweet game about two people and a moon! clone things and move them around to get different endings :3
small words – a soothing platformed-style exploration game that lets you uncover different maps/pictures as you walk around
don’t look back – a creepy game based on the myth of orpheus and eurydice, this is a platformer-style game that has you going to the underworld to get your lover back. very atmospheric, but a slightly creepy atmosphere that (of course) references death, so take care
alight in dreams – during a dream you get wings, and explore the dream to find out about the history of a person who has never dreamed before. mentions death and suicide.
a house in california – explore an old house and learn its history, very atmospheric. can be a bit confusing for some, you may need a walkthrough.
silent conversation – a soothing game that makes levels out of passages of classic books; you win by toughing every word. not my preferred reading material, but the way the levels are built kind of force you to drink it all in stead of speeding through it.
games that are a bit creepy…
prior – you, a little box creature, wake without your memories in an unknown place. you must explore to find your family and figure out what happened before you woke. a dark game with multiple possibilities – can be a little creepy.
immorTall – an alien makes friends with a human family after crashlanding to earth. defend them as long as possible!
loved – a dark sort of game where you go through the levels deciding if you will choose to obey the voice giving you orders or defy it. in some casing obeying makes things easier, but in other cases the voice asks you to make things hard on yourself – throwing yourself onto spikes so you have to start over, etc. sometimes it is almost impossible to do what the voice asks. (serious warning for emotional manipulation, just to be safe – the question at the start will purposefully misgender you depending on your answer, and continue to do so throughout the game, but, depending on your actions, will then correct the mistake at the end.)
one chance – a kind of dark game; in the impending apocalypse you have one chance to decide what to do with the rest of your life. there are many endings, but you really do only have one chance…refreshing the page will not let you play again! content warning for death,suicide, impending doom, hopelessness, etc
every day the same dream – another fatalistic game with multiple endings, but this one allows you to find them all. same warnings as the one above.
elude – a metaphorical representation of depression. dark melancholy levels, nice atmosphere, but can be a little moody.
symon – you play as an elderly man stuck in a hospital bed. you sleep to dream and relive your past. this game is pretty much endless and features endless combinations of the same tasks, to reflect what that sort of life might be like. cw for death and end-life blues.
now for some lighter ones…
pizza king 2 – i found this sim where you run your own pizza shop weirdly addictive. food cw, of course, and it’s the only sim on here because they usually aren’t my thing, but, well.
boomshine & obechi – two colorful games where a well-placed click will start a chain reaction and see how many points you can collect!
music bounce – release bouncing balls to hit platforms to get the perfect rhythm!
dropsum & dropsum colors – math games where you combine numbers to eliminate them. you can choose where to drop the numbers, turn the board, and use powerups! (dropsum colors isn’tloading for me rn, but it might for you)
first person tetris – you spin with the tetris blocks! fun for pros, but it can make you dizzy.
flash tron – a recreation of the original tron game as seen in the movies. here you can play with others online!
dolphin olympics – super fun game where you swim and do tricks as a dolphin to score as many points as you can in two minutes. there’s also a freeplay mode. if you jump high enough, you may even see the moon ouo
mirror’s edge 2d – i adore the 3d version of this game for ps3, but if you don’t have access, you can play the mini/2d version. no real story, but it’s a very challenging game with rad animation!
bloons – i started playing the tower defense game, but they’re all pretty fun and complex. scroll down a bit and click any of the ones under “bloons games”
elephant games – a sort-of series with gems like “achievement unlocked” & sequels (where there is no objective except to complete all the achievements) and “this is the only level” (where you go through the same level many different ways). you grow to be quite fond of the little guy. :’D
some of these i haven’t played in awhile! i pulled from my bookmarks, because i used to spend all day curating links to these things. if i’ve missed a content warning PLEASE feel free to contact me about it or add it yourself!
(or ”in this essay I will” joke gone very very wrong)
So, as most of us already noticed, Venom (2018) sure feels like a romantic comedy disguised as a superhero (well, antihero technically) movie. But is it truly? The short answer is yes, but I didn’t just spend my afternoon hunting proof to leave you with a short answer.
Now, I must note that Venom is really not the first superhero movie to mix another genre in. Off the top of my head, and perhaps most obvious, Ant-Man is mixing superheroics with a heist movie. Black Panther has the political thriller going. Thor: Ragnarok is a full blown cocktail, adding at least three more genres to the original one. So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that someone thought to mix in romcoms, and I for one am grateful that our first example of it has alien slime falling in love with a guy.
Because that’s what happened, despite certain people bending over backwards just to not acknowledge it. But I promised you proof, so let’s get to it.
How do you determine if something is a romantic comedy or not? “That’s just the vibe I got” is really not going to cut it in a debate. But what is a vibe if not our subconsciousness recognizing a certain pattern? In this case, the pattern was the plot structure. Not being a huge fan of romcoms in general, though, I wasn’t sure how to put it into words. Thankfully, I didn’t need to: with a bit of googling, I found out that most articles have referred to the same source when it came to the romcom plot structure: a book “Writing the Romantic Comedy” by Billy Mernit. According to him, all romantic comedies can be broken down into seven story beats. How many of those would you guess does Venom follow? Hint: it’s all of them.
Yooooooooo, this is some really excellent meta. I was thinking “man I need to look up some rom-com story structure templates because Venomdefinitely fits,” but rom-com isn’t my genre as a writer at all so I didn’t have that info at my fingertips. But you fuckin nailed it, @verycharismaticdragon! And you pinpointed exactly why something about the hospital scene felt a bit…off…to me the first time through, because it’s not the reaction we’d expect Eddie to be having to those particular circumstances at that point in the story…except within a rom-com framework it totally is.
The relationship beats don’t fall exactly where they would in a traditional rom-com because the movie is a little front-heavy; there’s a lot of setup and the key relationship storyline doesn’t start until the beginning of the second act. The “I am Venom and you are mine” scene, which would happen at the end of the first act of a traditional rom-com, happens at the midpoint of this movie (I checked the timing when I was watching it the second time through). So the structure is a bit squashed, but all the beats are definitely there.
here’s a compilation of different people driving box trucks into a low bridge over and over
It’s worth knowing a few fun facts, courtesy of 11foot8.com:
They can’t raise the bridge because it’s a train trestle, and raising it would require closing and modifying miles of busy track.
They can’t lower the road because it’s directly over a sewer main.
They can’t ban trucks entirely because there are too many local deliveries.
That section of road has a speed limit of 25 mph, numerous signs alerting drivers to the 11’8" limit, and recently they added a sensor that activates the stoplight and a flashing “overheight warning” sign so that drivers have to stop and think really hard about going forward.
The clearance is actually nearly three inches more than 11’8", the maximum deviation from the signage allowed.
Trucks have been getting stuck or damaged since the 1960s.
The guy who runs the website (and owns the cameras) says he sees a lot more trucks pull up to the stoplight, look at the warnings, and turn off onto the side road, but about once a month, someone hits the bridge.
the penske business is probably sick of this shit
new stem watch trucks get peeled like cans of anchovies
My stomach hurts and I can barely breathe, because I haven’t laughed this hard in a very, very long time. I only learned about this prank less than fifteen minutes ago, but I’m already dead from how ridiculous it is.
Context: Paul Rudd has a history of going on Conan O’Brien’s shows (first Late Night, then Conan) and, when asked to show a clip from his newest movie, shows this snippet of a 1988 movie called Mac and Me (an ET ripoff) that people refer to as “the runaway wheelchair scene.” And Conan falls for it… every time. The exasperation through the years just kills me. Every time Conan thinks that he’s maybe caught a break, it happens again.
He thought that Paul Rudd might have laid off the joke for Ant-Man, in hopes of not pissing off Marvel.
Look at that face. Look at that expression. Look at how resigned and dead he is. This was his chance to get Paul Rudd to actually show a proper clip. Who would piss off Marvel? Who would waste a chance to promo their new movie for a prank they’d already been doing for fifteen years?
People keep asking “How can anyone have a problem with AO3 doing fundraising!”
And I’m just like…. Have people not noticed all the virulent anti-AO3 hate on tumblr propagated by the anti shipping community? Antis have a problem with AO3 raising money because they hate the fact that AO3 won’t allow them to censor content they don’t like and doesn’t tolerate bullying. That’s who is putting out these posts like, “how can this nasty site raise so much money?” Read between the lines.
And for all the people who are just like, “If they don’t want AO3 to to raise money why don’t they just not donate?”
Because antis are incapable of saying “this isn’t for me so I won’t support it but I don’t care if other people support it. They have to actively discourage other people from supporting the thing. At the same time, they also won’t stop using AO3 because 1) they’re a bunch of fucking hypocrites who want readership and that’s where the readers are and 2) they’re too lazy to put together their own archive using AO3′s open source code because that would require doing coding and buying servers and doing all the moderating they want, which is hard, and they just want to engage in empty virtue signalling, which is easy
Anyway, my point is, people need to be aware that these people are out there and they hate AO3 and they want it to go away even though they’re actively using the platform. They’ve even said they want AO3 to fail so something “better” (re, something they control) can take its place. Some of them are blatant about it, calling AO3 a cesspit of pedophilia, and some of them are subtle about it, saying more innocuous things like ‘Does AO3 really need 130K a year?” “Shouldn’t you give your money to individual needy people doing gofundmes for stuff that’s more more important?”
But all of these people have the same end goal, which is the destruction of the archive, and the way they’re going about it right now is to try to discourage people from donating.
So instead of asking, “Why do people object to AO3 raising money?” start telling people “Hey there are people out there who hate AO3 and want to destroy it and we have to protect the archive from them.” And donate, if you can, and signal boost, if you can’t.
There was a crooked man… and he walked a crooked mile; The crooked man stepped forth and… rang the crooked bell; And thus his crooked soul… spiralled into a crooked Hell; Murdered his crooked family… and laughed a crooked laugh;
Jab loves robots 