I recently saw the new Disney Pixar movie Inside Out. Expecting to love it, like most Disney and Pixar movies, I was not prepared for the emotions that accompanied this movie.
The movie starts inside a little girl named Riley's mind. We first meet Joy, on of the emotions inside of Riley's Head Quarters. Not long after, Sadness joins her. For not very understood reasons, Sadness keeps pushing the button that makes Riley sad, with Joy trying to gently push her aside. Throughout young Riley's life, more emotions join Joy and Sadness. Disgust, Anger, and Fear all join in and help raise Riley up to have a mostly happy life.
In a turn of events, Riley is pulled across country to a new house and school. While Joy mostly takes care to keep her happy and smiling for her parents, Sadness seems to have a problem keeping her hands off of Riley's old memories. When she touches them, however, they turn blue, and the memory becomes sad in Riley's mind.
In the land of emotions, there are islands based on Riley's core memories. Things like Friendship Island, Family Island, Hockey Island, Goofball Island, and Honesty Island. These represent Riley's core values, and it isn't hard to start wondering what ours would be as the movie goes along.
When Joy and Sadness are suddenly swept away from HQ into long-term memory, Riley is at a new school and trying to introduce herself. What she originally seems really excited about, she is now remembering as a sad time and is now sad, herself. Left in a sad state, with no Joy around to make her smile, Riley is left to face the new move and her conflicting feelings of anger, fear, disgust, and the lingering sadness by herself. She lashes out against her parents, but not in an uncommon way for preteens. She hangs up on an old friend after hearing about the new girl on the hockey team. She ends up losing all of her core values -- literally, we see them collapse as Joy and Sadness race to get back. Near the end, we see Riley's control board start to turn dark. The three remaining emotions realize they can't make her feel anything. Riley is on a bus, numb.
Joy loses Sadness in long-term memory. While wandering around, Joy replays a memory, realizing that sadness enveloped it in the first half. Joy happened a few seconds later, making the memory happy, even though there was hurt behind it. Joy realizes that the memory is happy because when Riley was sad, her family and friends came to support her. This happiness outweighed the sadness. Joy takes this knowledge with a new resolve to get both Sadness and herself back to HQ. When both are back, they create an emotion of bittersweet as Riley cries into her parents, "I couldn't be your happy little girl."
Riley is not an abnormal preteen. None of her emotions act too far away from what normal kids go through every day. What is different about this movie, though, is we learn about the need for sadness and what it actually takes to make us happy. From the beginning of the movie, we never really know why we get sad randomly. Sadness shows up out of the blue and hits the button from birth. Sadness touching old memories is like a change of personality. Things that used to make us happy can looked back upon and be regretted or can remind someone of sadness lurking behind it. This movie is not about depression, but it does point to it with a loud flashing arrow. It shows that it is always close.
Joy gets swept away. Suddenly, we don't know why we can't feel happy. We don't know why we just feel sad or angry or afraid. Maybe, we don't feel anything at all. We can't be pulled back by ourselves. Our core values are failing because we can't think of a reason to have them anymore. Eventually, even anger loses out to numbness.
We can't pull ourselves out alone. That is such a huge theme in the movie. We need support and love and hope. What is wrong with this is that people don't usually know how to ask or how to give it. A hug and an "It's going to be okay" sure won't fix everything. But it is always nice to feel like everything is in good hands or under control. This is one way to save someone from depression.
However, if your control board is black -- if there is no way to wake it up -- and you feel hopeless and pointless, someone telling you it is okay is not going to help. At all. Telling someone to just feel better isn't going to help. Sometimes, our Joy doesn't make it back. Sometimes, she is stuck in the forgotten land for the rest of our lives. And it hurts. And if anyone has found the solution to that, feel free to comment. I would love to know.
So, to those people who know me and who either rolled their eyes or actually understood that I am not okay: I am sorry I couldn't be your happy little girl.
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