Inside Out

Inside Out

Pixar Animation Studios

Film released 2015

Directors: Pete Docter, Ronaldo Del Carmen

Writers: Pete Docter, Ronaldo Del Carmen, Meg LeFauve, Josh Cooley, and a couple other peeps

Starring: Amy Poehler, Phyllis Smith, Richard Kind, Bill Hader, Lewis Black, Mindy Kaling, Kaitlyn Dias

Rated: PG

SPOILER WARNING! PROCEED AT YOUR OWN RISK! SERIOUSLY! ALL THE SPOILS!

Grade: 5/5

I’m back! Did ya miss me? Well, I missed you. Where else am I supposed to channel all of my suppressed inner queer child feels? Speaking of feels (perfect segue?)…let’s take a big queer look at Pixar’s newest installment in their hopelessly lost and miraculously found series: Inside Out!

If you live in a box in the middle of nowhere, then you probably don’t know what the movie is about. I’m here to help all the poor queer misanthropes out there.

Our story begins with Riley (Kaitlyn Dias), a happy little girl who lives in Minnesota, loves hockey, her family, her friends, and lives a pretty darn joyful tomboy life. 

I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream!

Cue the actual subject matter of the movie: Riley’s inner emotional life, literally. Pixar introduces us to Riley’s emotions: Joy (Amy Poehler), Sadness (Phyllis Smith), Fear (Bill Hader), Anger (Lewis Black), and Disgust (Mindy Kaling). Joy is the ruler of Riley-land and she’s loving life bossing around the other emotions and making sure Riley stays – you guessed it – joyful. 

Left to right: Anger, Disgust, Joy, Fear, Sadness

That is until Riley’s parents decide to uproot and move to San Francisco for Dad’s new job with a startup. The move throws Riley’s emotions totally out of whack and Sadness starts to challenge Joy’s chiefdom, which she does not take sitting down. When Sadness touches a core memory (I would explain this but it’s complicated and you should just watch the movie dumdum) and it turns from a joyful memory to a sad memory about missing her old life in Minnesota, chaos ensues leading to Joy and Sadness getting accidentally ejected from headquarters and they end up between the shelves of Riley’s long term memories. Riley is left without the ability to feel either Joy or Sadness and Anger, Disgust, and Fear can’t hold down the fort. Joy and Sadness meet Riley’s old imaginary friend, the awesome BingBong, and try their darnedest to get back to headquarters before Riley runs away from home! 

They can't tell I'm running away to a spoken word open mic, can they?

Okay, whew, that’s the basic plot. Let’s get into the queer stuff.

First! Major points for female representation! We have not one, not two, but THREE female protagonists (depending on how you categorize protagonist in this movie)! We’ve got Riley herself, Joy, AND Sadness all presenting as female. This movie is only Pixar’s second with a female protagonist (Brave was the first, duh) and they’re going whole hog this time a-round. Despite most of the story and writing team being almost entirely male (ugh, Pixar, get with the program already), the female characters are complex, well-imagined, and all around relatable depictions of women. You go Pixar!

Second. There’s been a lot of internet talk about how gender factors into the movie. We get a sneak peak at some of the emotional inner life of the other characters in the movie (primarily Mom and Dad, but there are a ton of others too) and the genders of everyone’s five primary emotions seem to align with the characters' genders, except for Riley’s. For Riley, Joy, Sadness, and Disgust are female while Anger and Fear are both male. People have taken to the internet to discuss what this means. Is Riley trans? Queer? Genderfluid? Genderqueer? Non-binary? WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?!? Well, I hate to burst your hopeful little queer bubble but here’s a quote on the topic from the one and only Mr. Director Pete Docter, courtesy of the IMDB trivia page:

When asked about the genders of the emotions, Pete Docter said, "It was intuitive. It felt to me like Anger's very masculine, I don't know why ... Sadness felt a little more feminine and Mindy Kaling as Disgust felt right ... with Mom and Dad, we skewed them all male and all female for a quick read, because you have to understand where we are, which is a little phony but hopefully people don't mind!"

Womp womp womp...But I still think there is hope! Docter is basically saying that he only made everyone else's emotions one gender because of exposition...But I think it’s actually way more nuanced than that, even if he doesn't know it. But I don't completely agree with the discussions happening online either.

Disclaimer: This opinion is mine and mine alone as a cis gender woman who does not have a mental illness. Please feel free to chime in with your opinion if you disagree with the following theory. 

That said, here’s my take:

I have found that my gender identity is not at all tied up in my emotional life. My emotions have a much stronger connection to my gender expression rather than my identity. I am and always will be a tomboy. I am happiest when I get to live comfortably within that expression. I am unhappy when I’m forced out of that comfort zone and, for example, am forced to wear a dress, skirt, or anything like that. Gender identity and gender expression are two totally different things. I am a woman but I tend to wear mens clothing. That doesn’t make me trans*, that makes me a tomboy, as per my personal preference for that label. I am a female and I am a tomboy. That identity and that expression are not contradictory or in conflict, they actually compliment each other quite nicely. I think that the genders of Riley’s emotions represent femininity vs masculinity instead of female versus male. Riley’s emotions are personifications of concepts and concepts inherently have no gender. They are actually genderless (so they are actually, technically non-binary). But they present as either feminine or masculine. Rather than her emotions representing Riley’s gender identity, I think they are a manifestation of her gender expression, aligning with her clearly identifiable tomboy proclivities. Riley is a girl with a slightly masculine expression, that’s why 2/5 of her emotions present as masculine. As for the other characters, their emotions’ gender ratios align with their gender expressions. Mom dresses femininely and her emotions are all female presenting; dad dresses masculinely and his emotions are all male presenting. This idea applies to all the characters whose emotions are shown, even the dog!

Okay, there’s a lot to unravel in there. I’m gonna leave it at that for now cause I could write a thesis on that topic alone.

Moving on. This is a big one: mental health. This movie is basically a giant PSA for kids that growing up is hard and it’s okay to feel your feelings, even when you are sad, or mad, or happy, or scared, or disgusted, and that KIDS’ FEELINGS ARE LEGITIMATE. So often kids’ emotions are disregarded because young people are just that, young. But young people are also people with rich inner emotional lives. And because kids are also people with these huge inner emotional lives, they also need to take care of their mental health, the same way adults should. Riley can’t function properly or process the huge change that is going on in her life because she can’t feel either Joy or Sadness. Both are equally important. And Joy’s journey throughout the movie, coming to accept that Sadness is a necessary part of Riley’s emotions is SO IMPORTANT. Everyone needs a good cry every once in a while, am I right? This movie is putting mental health front and center in an incredibly accessible way. I really hope this helps kids who are depressed and have serious mental health issues identify what is happening to them and get them to seek help, knowing that it’s okay to talk openly about their feelings.

You're future looks...sad

And last but certainly not least, THEY MADE A TASTEFUL EXPLICIT GAY JOKE! I can’t remember the exact quote but Fear says something about being scared of bears attacking Riley, and the other emotions are like, “there aren’t any bears in San Fransisco,” and Anger says that he saw a bear walking down the street earlier and I almost died of shock/happiness/laughter. This joke was 1) hilarious, 2) super casual and nbd, and 3) AN EXPLICIT GAY JOKE IN THE MIDDLE OF A HUGELY GROSSING PIXAR MOVIE THAT MILLIONS OF KIDS ARE SEEING AROUND THE WORLD! This. Is. Huge. And while the joke will most likely go over most kids' heads, parents will certainly catch it and that’s enough for me. One small step for gays, one giant leap for gay-kind.

MVQ: BingBong. He’s my hero. Also, his flying wagon is powered by rainbows, which is just the best thing Pixar has ever thought up.

BingBong BingBong

OTP: Joy and Sadness. The perfect yin-yang. They’d make a well-balanced couple, maybe?

Favorite Moment: I lol’ed so hard when Sadness, Joy, and BingBong were in the abstract thought chamber. That was some seriously funny intellectual humor and I’m a total sucker for nerdy stuff like that. I’m really glad they put that in a kid’s film.