"Inside Out 2": A Serious Flaw and Major Strength

Source: Gino Crescoli from Pixabay

There’s much to be said about the latest edition of the successful animated film Inside Out 2. I limit myself to two points – both extremes – and I’ll start with a big win for the film and then turn to its glaring failing.

The film’s premise and plot are psychological – emotions depicted as animated characters in the psyche of a girl, Riley, who is hitting puberty. The emotions jockey for control, work together, and conflict with new emerging feelings – all mirroring life.

A Healthy Approach to Afflictive Emotions

In the film, the intense character/emotion of Anxiety, takes over and wreaks havoc in Riley’s life. Anxiety pulls her away from her true self. It is not until all the emotions “let go” of trying to change and control Riley that she is able to experience freedom – and her true self. The visual power of cinema is perfect for the delivery of these messages, which include the release of the control panel, the embracing of the difficult (all the emotion characters hugging each other), expressing self-compassion in contrast to aggressive self-talk, breathing with the feelings (instead of avoiding them), and boundary-setting on emotions. A takeaway message is clear: Allow space for upsetting emotions.

These healthy messages are important not only for youth in today’s world where depression, suicidality, and especially anxiety, are on the rise, but also for adults. Listening to and learning from the themes in this film is a lesson within the strength of social intelligence. This complex character strength involves being tuned into one’s own (and others’) emotions and responding appropriately in the situation.

A Lack of Balance – Only One Positive Emotion

Emotions occur in our body and mind. They can be nourishing/positive and afflictive/negative (I’ll use the word “afflictive” more because these emotions are, in reality, not "bad" or "negative"). In the films Inside Out and Inside Out 2, there are the afflictive emotions of Anger, Disgust, Fear, and Sadness and in the latter film we meet additional afflictive emotions of Anxiety, Envy, Embarrassment, and Ennui (boredom). In contrast, across both films, there is one positive emotion – Joy. That’s it!

To have only one nourishing or positive emotion depicted in the psyche of Riley is extraordinarily shallow. It is also inaccurate. Humans have a large array of positive emotions. Where are excitement, love, gratitude, interest, desire, (healthy) pride, awe, elevation, hope, amusement, and/or calmness/peace? Nowhere. The film goes from an imbalance in the first film of four to one (afflictive to positive) and extends this to eight to one.

Could this gross imbalance and missed educational opportunity be a priority toward entertainment and thereby financial gain? Of course. Does it also reflect the human brain’s tendency toward a deficit-based, negativity bias? Yes. Does it also reflect an imbalance in our culture to give priority attention to what is wrong inside of us? Cue the Sadness character – yes.

I’ll set aside the many ways that consultants and writers could have corrected this error and not compromised integrity, accuracy, or entertainment value, and instead, offer some questions.

• What kind of message is this imbalance to our youth (the central focus of the film)?
• What does this mean for adults who have never given much attention to anything but feeling mad-sad-glad-afraid?
• With only one good feeling a person can have, does this not perpetrate stereotypes around positive feelings being about sugarcoating and happiology?
• Where is a foundation and breadth of positivity by which viewers can get in touch with and grow?

While it’s great there is a strong character in Joy in these films, new science shows humans tend to care more about peace than we do joy. Science also shows humans experience substantial benefit from emotions of gratitude, interest, and love. Science has emerged in the last two decades emphasizing the human capacity and experience for awe to the natural world. And science shows we can improve our goodness in the world when we feel the emotion of elevation.

The breadth of emotions in human beings makes us better and contributes to a greater world. Even if movies sometimes omit this, we don’t have to.