PYSCHOLOGY DECEMBER ASSIGNMENT
INSIDE OUT MOVIE REPORT
Inside out beautifully portrays the five primary emotions which are Joy, fear, Disgust,
anger and sadness in the head of an 11-year-old girl named Riley. These emotions
embodied by characters who help Riley navigate her world. In the film, Yellow stands
for joy, blue for sadness, red for anger, purple for fear and green for disgust.
Throughout the movie we see, how these emotions take turns in influencing Riley’s
behavior. Initially Joy seems to define Riley’s behavior when she was in Minnesota, how
she enjoys her ideal upbringing. However then, her father starts a new company in
San Francisco. This normally cheerful and happy girl becomes sad and angry when she
is forced to leave the house, her friends and the hockey team she loves and has a hard
time pretending to be happy for her parents. Riley experiences various highs and lows
throughout the movie and the role her emotions play in the way Riley reacts is readily
apparent. When I started watching the movie, I assumed it to be like every other
animated movie , but by the end of the movie I was fascinated ! The fact that you can
really identify with the Riley and I got to know about Human emotions deeply yet in a
simple way.
We see how out of all 5 of Riley’s emotions, Joy seems to be the leader, she keeps the
others in check but reminds the viewers that all of them have an important function. She
states that Disgust keeps Riley safe from being poisoned, Fear keeps her safe from a
catastrophe by imagining worst case scenarios, Anger protects her from others and also
allows her to be a better hockey player, while Joy ensures that Riley is happy. However,
Joy fails to see the importance of Sadness and tries to shoo Sadness away from
anything Riley-related, forbidding this emotion in every way possible. She even draws a
circle on the floor and makes Sadness stay inside it, forbidding her to leave or to touch
any of Riley’s memories, so as not to taint them with sad memories. The irony here is
how Sadness turns out to be the real star of the film, for example, in a crucial moment in
the film, Riley allows herself to feel sadness, in addition to fear and anger, about her
idea of running away from home; as a result, she decides not to go through with her
plan. This choice reunites Riley with her family, giving her a deeper sense of happiness
and contentment in the comfort she gets from her parents, even though it’s mixed with
sadness and fear. From this we learn one very important message and that is How at
times sadness is necessary for our well-being. Sadness allows for connection, when we
see someone else feeling sad, we might feel sad too and this way when we virtually
share our emotions it works like an healing process. We can recall something similar
this happening in the film too, when Sadness comforts Riley’s imaginary friend, Bing
Bong, and also when Riley is able to share her sadness with her parents. Another
important lesson we learnt from this masterpiece is how all our emotions are valid and
important. They all have their specific importance. Lastly, we must try to embrace out
tougher emotions like sadness instead of suppressing them. The reason behind this is
when we try to suppress or numb emotions like sadness we are eventually trying to
numb happiness too and its important for us to understand that Happiness cannot be
forced. Thus in simple terms, In my perspective, there are times when you can, and
honestly need to be sad or scared and life is all about experiencing new things and not
putting pressure on yourself for not being brave or happy enough. We all have multiple
emotions and different ways to express them and all of our emotions do matter and are
completely valid.
Inside out is one of the finest and most creative movie I have ever seen, the way they
have portrays how our minds and emotions is truly outstanding!
