Love and Power Institute

Reflections on the Movie “Inside Out 2” It is actually quite wonderful that Disney’s Pixar has produced not one but two movies about the emotions given that there has been remarkable little study of emotions in the psychological literature and remarkable little awareness of emotions in our daily life, especially for men.  In our culture men are discouraged from feeling fear, surprise, sadness, joy, and especially shame/embarrassment and women are discouraged from feeling anger.   In the animated film “Inside Out 2” the main emotion that takes the lead is Joy.  The other emotions, which are fear, sadness, anger,  and disgust portrayed in “inside Out 1, here joined with anxiety, embarrassment, envy and ennui now that our central character, Riley, has entered  puberty.  All of these emotions play a role, especially anxiety, in the themes of the movie.  But one wonders if Riley were a boy, would he have as large a palate of emotions does the female Riley? Let’s imagine Riley as a male, also named Riley.  What would a typical adolescent (American) boy be like emotionally?  First, what emotion would be the lead emotion, leading all of the others?  Would it be joy?  Unlikely.  More likely it would be a more serious emotion, one with intent, perhaps interest or curiosity.  And because American culture discourages males from feeling anything that appears “weak,” the emotional palate for the male Riley would be limited.  Not a good emotional range for the main character in a movie that wants to use as many as five primary emotions (joy, sadness, fear, disgust , and anger, with the later additions of envy, ennui, embarrassment (shame) and anxiety).  Maybe only two or three of all those emotions are easily accessible to a typical adolescent boy.           Indeed, it is because she is a girl that the emotion of Joy can be the ruling emotion in the film, since women are strongly encouraged to manifest happiness/joy.  I might even go so far as to say that while boys are expected to be serious, girls are expected to be happy.  They are expected to be good at smiling…all the time.  The result of this imperative is that girls, most especially when in public, smile a lot more than they would if they were expressing their honest emotions.  If they aren’t looking happy when in public someone often will ask them if there is a problem.  As though being serious, when female, suggests she is experiencing a problem, rather than not feeling like smiling. I know something about this since I was a very serious adolescent while being female.  My home life was chaotic and unsupportive as well as impoverished and I was bright and wanted to go to college.  I knew the only way I could was with scholarships to pay the way.  However, despite my good grades, I was only rewarded a small scholarship to attend the University of California, my college of choice.  When I asked my high school counselor why I didn’t receive more financial aid, she said, “You don’t smile enough.  We don’t want someone who looks unhappy to represent our high school.” I recognized even then the discrimination in her words.  I knew the boy who had received full scholarships and he was someone who was serious all the time.  He, like me, rarely smiled. So what then is the message of the film?  Well, certainly the film was breaking new ground in that it placed emotions in the center of the action, much like real life, and showed their influence.  But it followed the biases of the culture in depicting Riley, a girl, as at the whim of her emotions, and someone whose main emotion is, or should be, joy.  In depicting joy as the leader of the girl’s emotional life, the film reinforces one of our culture’s messages to women:  If you aren’t happy then there must be something wrong with you. So smile!!