I don’t go to movies in the theater often…hardly ever actually. Recently though, I saw the new Pixar movie
“Inside Out” and I would highly recommend it.
I know what you are thinking: “That’s a kid’s movie…why on earth would
Theresa write a post on her bioethics blog about a kid’s movie?” Well, it is a kid’s movie to be sure, but I am
convinced that a psychology student could write their dissertation on the film.
The movie has a definitively adult level and a message that
is desperately needed in our society. It
opens at the birth of the main character, Riley. Inside Riley’s mind we meet Joy, a vivacious
and enthusiastic little emotion ready to tackle life alongside Riley. Within seconds, Joy is joined by another,
less vivacious emotion, Sadness. We
follow Riley through her first decade of life quite quickly and along the way
we meet our final three emotions, Fear, Anger, and Disgust. These 5 emotions run the control panel inside
Riley’s head, most of the time Joy is in control, so Riley is a generally happy
kid. Along the way we see Riley form
many memories including 5 core memories that make up the fundamental parts of
her personality (goofiness, love of family, love of friends, honesty, and love
of hockey).
When Riley is 11 her family moves from Minnesota to San Francisco,
and this move comes at a high emotional cost for our little heroine. Through a series of events, Joy and Sadness
get tossed out of the control panel and have to find their way back through the
deepest corners of Riley’s mind. During
this adventure Joy, who has always been annoyed and put off by Sadness,
realizes the important role Sadness actually plays in Riley’s life.
The most prominent theme in the movie for me, is an
illustration of the importance of sadness and suffering in our life. Sadness can help temper our other emotions,
allow us to experience true joy, and help us process through the sufferings in our
life. This is not a new idea certainly
and there have been scores of books and motivational speakers who have tread
this path time and again. What I loved
though was seeing this idea so brilliantly illustrated in a kid’s movie. Teaching our children (and their parents)
that sadness has a place and makes us grow.
As Americans we often think there should be no suffering, no
death, no pain or hurt of any kind. Our
primary goal in life becomes avoiding pain and hiding the hurt whenever some
suffering sneaks through. This type of
life isn’t healthy or fulfilling, but many people don’t realize what their life
is missing until they allow themselves to enter the suffering and deal with
their sadness on a real level. It seems
counter intuitive that sadness leads to joy, but understanding and accepting
the sadness and loss helps us to better understand and appreciate life’s joys.
Outside of this counter-cultural understanding of sadness,
the movie also had an extremely wholesome family message. At one point Joy and Sadness are recalling
the same memory, the loss of a hockey game.
They each reflect on how this is a good memory for them (i.e. the memory
is both sad and happy). A few scenes
later, Joy finds the memory and watches it from the beginning, seeing how the devastation
of losing the hockey game is changed to joy when Mom and Dad come to comfort
Riley. Joy is surprised by this
realization and remarks (something to the effect of) “Mom and Dad make the pain
go away.” This idea is profound in our
culture: Mom and Dad are right? They
have wisdom? They can solve problems for
their children?
The ideas of honoring your father and mother and submitting
yourself to their wisdom and love often are presented as old school in our
culture. Our society tends to play into
the idea that Mom and Dad are stupid, their experience is useless to teach
children anything, and kids probably know more than their parents do anyway. My home is not immune to this societal
influence, the idea that I have gained wisdom from my experiences and want the
best for him is battle I fight with my 18 year old on a daily basis.
It was wonderful to see a different narrative in this movie. In almost all cases, Mom and Dad desperately
want what is best for their children, they want to share their wisdom and
experience, protect their children, and show them love. I absolutely adored seeing this reality on
the screen in Inside Out, it was refreshing, wholesome, and heartwarming.
I could likely go on and on about this movie and I am sure
that each time I watch it new revelations will arise from its depths, but I
will stop for now, with a strong endorsement of the film as one of the most family
friendly I have seen in a long time. It
is well worth your money and support of the filmmakers. If you haven’t gone to see it, please do and
if you already have, see it again!
