I recently watched Pixar’s Inside Out, which “is set in the
mind of a young girl named Riley Andersen where five personified emotions—Joy,
Sadness, Fear, Anger, and Disgust—try to lead her through life as her parents move
from Minnesota to San Francisco and she has to adjust to her new life” (as
described by Wikipedia).
It had some interesting ideas about how memories and
emotions worked and really got me thinking, so I thought I’d write some of
these down. Needless to say there will be spoilers.
One of the things I really liked from the movie was the idea
of emotions being in control at different times, and there being one dominant
emotion.
What resonated with me the most was that the dominant
emotion goes a long way to determining our personalities. For instance, in the
movie Joy is the dominant emotion as Riley grows up and therefore she’s a happy
child. I’m sure we all know people who have different dominant emotions, from
positive people, people who are constantly angry and those who seem to let
everything get them down. However our personalities aren’t set in stone and if
we start thinking about which emotion dominates we can consciously change our
personality.
Another idea I hadn’t really considered before was that our
memories have different emotions attached to them and that the emotion can
change over time, especially as the memory itself changes.
For instance, a happy memory can change to anger if our feelings towards the person involved changes, or we look back at sad times in our lives and feel nostalgic for them as we forget the things which made us sad and only remember the good things.
For instance, a happy memory can change to anger if our feelings towards the person involved changes, or we look back at sad times in our lives and feel nostalgic for them as we forget the things which made us sad and only remember the good things.
Near the end of the movie Riley decides to get a bus back to
Minnesota where she was happy.
The movie seemed to be suggesting that ideas can come from different emotions, in this example Anger came up with the idea. When deciding whether something is a good idea it’s worth considering where the idea is coming from. Ideas from anger and jealously for instance are rarely good ones.
The movie seemed to be suggesting that ideas can come from different emotions, in this example Anger came up with the idea. When deciding whether something is a good idea it’s worth considering where the idea is coming from. Ideas from anger and jealously for instance are rarely good ones.
Finally, at the end of the movie Joy and Sadness make it
back to HQ and having spent most of the movie trying to keep Sadness out of the
way, Joy let her take control.
It was only after Riley let herself feel her sadness and give in to it was she able to deal with what she was going through.
Although it’s generally good to try and stay positive, sometimes we need to give in to our feelings in order to process them and move on.
It was only after Riley let herself feel her sadness and give in to it was she able to deal with what she was going through.
Although it’s generally good to try and stay positive, sometimes we need to give in to our feelings in order to process them and move on.
All in all, I got a lot out of this movie and made me view things differently; it was brave of Pixar and
Disney to tackle a subject like this.
