When I rewatched Inside Out in Psychology class this week, I realized how much I missed the message when I was younger. For many, the ending where Joy willingly gives Sadness the core memories to turn blue makes them confused. How did Sadness save the day, saving Riley’s mind and helping her go back home?
Inside Out is about toxic positivity.
Inside Out is—in my opinion—one of Pixar’s best films. It’s light-hearted with jokes and colorful characters, but many moments of the movie are serious, like when Riley starts to lose her “personality islands” when Joy and Sadness accidentally dislodge her core memories and are thrown out of headquarters. The movie justifies Riley losing her islands because of the “core memories” being lost, but Sadness’ strong desire to turn the core memories “sad” represents Riley losing herself and becoming depressed after moving away from the home she loves. Joy represents Riley’s internal conflict (perhaps influenced by her parents’ request for her to remain “their happy girl”) to remain positive despite the depression.
I struggle with an anxiety disorder. Oftentimes when I feel anxious or depressed I’m told, “Don’t be anxious, be happy,” as if a positive mindset can fix all of my problems. Joy—despite being the main character—in a way is a sort of villain in the movie. Though she has the best of intentions, she wants to force Riley to remain happy, and Joy pushes Sadness out of the way whenever she wants to influence Riley’s emotions towards the negative.
But the first sign of growth in Joy’s character arc is when Bing Bong loses his rocket and becomes depressed about it. Joy tries to cheer him up by making funny faces and forcing him out of sadness. She doesn’t sympathize with him or think about how he feels. But Sadness sits beside him and acknowledges his pain, admitting that she sees why he’s upset and, “Yeah, that’s sad.” After Bing Bong has this moment with Sadness, he wipes his tears away and guides them to the train station again. Joy is in shock, and she asks Sadness how she did it. Joy forcing Bing Bong to be happy didn’t help him feel any better, but Sadness comforting him and acknowledging that losing the rocket was sad did.
Throughout the movie, Joy watches Sadness respond to conflict differently. Though it may appear at first that Sadness isn’t helpful because she’s depressed and she complains a lot, she’s willing to remark on the bleakness of a situation or use an unorthodox way to help Riley. But the turning point for Joy is when she loses all hope in the Memory Dump, only to realize that one of Riley’s happy core memories was a result of a previously sad moment. Riley needed to feel sad before she could feel happy again. Sadness isn’t something to push away, it’s a necessary part of the healing process. "Negative" emotions aren't necessarily negative.
At the end of the movie when Joy and Sadness get back to headquarters, only Sadness can regain control over Riley’s emotions, because sadness is a vital emotion that allows us to process our feelings and heal our wounds. Riley rushes back to her parents and cries for the first time in a long time, and the emotion characters discover that emotions can be combined, because all emotions are intertwined in our humanity.
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Annabelle, I enjoyed your media analysis on Inside Out. You explained the message about toxic positivity well. I also liked how you incorporated your opinions and experiences while focusing deeply on Joy, Sadness, and Riley. Specifically, I liked how you established that sadness is a part of the healing process. Good job.
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