With our series of disability-driven deep Disney dives comes the eventuality of addressing a tale from the juggernaut that is Pixar Animation Studios, as they are too part of the Disney umbrella of brands. Knowing that, what better film in Pixar's library exists to look deeper into than one that literally travels inside the mind of a dysfunctional child to magnify emotional dysregulation? Of course, we're talking about Inside Out.
On the surface, Inside Out seems like your average fun time from Disney-Pixar, with the aesthetic begging to mind the character models of Toy Story and the comedic cast reflecting the humorous talents featured in Monsters Inc. However, given enough of a closer look at the material provided in the film, much more substance comes along with this feature than expected from your average heartwarming tale from the collaborating studios. While there is no doubt much more subtext involved in this film than we can likely capture, we are taking our best shot at addressing a number of the often overlooked themes in the movie that aren't caught by the casual moviegoer, with our cental point being the through-line of the disability that is emotional dysregulation.
Our previous pieces in this series of featurettes were focused on titles from the House of Mouse's main animation studio - Wreck-It Ralph and Encanto. While this entry in our series of introspectives may be more widely recognized to represent the struggles of the disabled population, there is far too much packed into Inside Out's story to warrant skipping this title on our journey through recognizing representation. It may be easy to enjoy the simple laughs delivered by the powerhouse ensemble voice cast including Amy Poehler (Parks and Recreation), Mindy Kaling (The Office), Lewis Black (Man of the Year), Bill Hader (Superbad), Phyllis Smith (The Office), and Richard Kind (A Bug's Life), but the meat of the movie lies in the subtext that isn't necessarily hammered home between comedically-timed delivered lines. We find that this warrants a deeper dive into the more subtle aspects of the film that might not be picked up on during a casual viewing of Inside Out.
The main character in this heartwarming coming-of-age tale is Riley, a growing youth that faces the turmoil of having her life uplifted and unwillingly relocating to a new town during a vulnerable time in her childhood development. This story is used as a lens through which to express multiple facets of emotional dysregulation, such as loss of joy, memory corruption, and behavioral signs which may point to a bit of neurodiversity in our growing heroine. Her internal emotional system, which is examplified by the personification of Joy (Amy Poehler), Anger (Lewis Black), Fear (Bill Hader), Sadness (Phyllis Smith), and Disgust (Mindy Kaling), suffers from her loss of stability during her family's action of upheaval to relocate her to an new and unknown environment - something that is relatable to many youngsters in the audience.
Understanding Emotional Dysregulation Accross The Disability Spectrum:
The state of ermotional dysregulation is often overlooked as a disability, but the nature of the situation involves an inherent difficulty to balance emotional responses and control reactions to troubling and difficult scenarios. This often presents as intense mood swings, intense reactions to perceivedly minor triggers with a struggle to modulate emotional responses proportionate to the situation at hand, and difficulty calming down once upset. The center of the difficulties presented in emotional dysregulation, particularly in neurodivergent children, is the centerpiece to how emotional dysregulation is depicted in Inside Out, using the colorful cast of emotional characters as a representation of the emotional aspect of the child's central nervous system.
It is crucial to mention that emotional dysregulation in itself isn't always considered a disability, as is the nature of the beast of difficult situations we face in everyday life in society. However, it is certainly at the core of numerous mental health deficiencies which are considered disabilies under such laws as the ADA (Americans wth Disabilities Act). Such examples include
- BPD: Borderline personality disorder involves a number of disabling features, coming with unstable relationships, intense fear of abandonment, emotional volatility, impulsive behaviors, and a shifting self-image. It also comes with prolonged feelings of emptiness and inappropriately intense anger and can lead to varying states of paranoia or dissociation.
- Bipolar Disorder: Bipolar disorder is commmonly misunderstood and it presents as alternating episodes of mania or hypomania, which includes elevated moods and impulsivity, reduced needs for sleep, ultimately leading to states of psychosis, followed by the opposing state of depression, which comes with intense sadness, fatigue, and often suicidal ideation. There are multiple subtypes of bipolar disorder, including bipolar I, bipolar II, and cyclothymia.
- ADHD: A form of neurodivergence, all subtypes of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder are now known to include emotional dysregulation as a key component which can manifest in ways like emotional impulsivity, rejection sensitivity, and prolonged irritability.
- PTSD: Post-traumatic stress disorder sees a rewiring of the brain's emotional circuitry by trauma, particularly in areas like the amygdala, which controls threat detection, and in the case of Inside Out, the prefrontal cortex, which controls emotional regulation. This can include impulsivity, hyperarousal, emotional numbing, and mood instability, all of which are expressed in Riley throughout the film. Additional layers of emotional complexity involve difficulty identifying emotions, fragmented self-image, and fear of abandonment.
- Autism Spectrum Disorders: Another common form of neurodivergence, autism often presents as challenges in identifying or expressing emotions which can lead to dysregulation, especially in situations when a person is faced with overstimulation in environments unaccommadating to sensory and communication needs.
Dissecting Inside Out's Disability Depiction:
The film kicks off with a major event upending Riley's core emotional system and providing a perceived threat to the functions that regulate the blossoming adolescent's emotions. In what is potentially one of the most vulnerable stages of Riley's childhood, her parents deem that it is time to pick up everything and move to a city that is foreign to our lead character, San Francisco. While an adult may find excitement and opportunity in this new locale, the youngster is instead worried that she is leaving behind everything she knows to be a safe haven for her. This sends her emotions into overdrive, leading to an overall state of panic within her.
The film provides us a framework for our colorful character cast up front through a narration by Joy which explains the major functions each of the emotions are responsible for in their aspect of Riley's emotional regulation. Joy is shown to have been with Riley from birth and heading up the department which is responsible for proper memory retention to prevent any memory corruption on the part of emotional dysregulation, which the movie later utilizes to express the level to which Riley is affected by the life event this movie is centered around.
As time goes on, Joy explains that she was joined quickly by Sadness, who comes begrudgingly along with the newborn's first tears. Next up during the toddler stage of life, Fear arrives, and is said to be "very good at keeping Riley safe." Not long into Riley's youth, Disgust comes along, and is explained as keeping Riley from being poisoned, "both physically and socially." The hotheaded Anger is introduced as "caring very deeply" and is responsible for firing Riley up during times of tantrum. Funnily enough, Joy has no explanation for what Sadness contributes to Riley's best interest, but this may be due to the conflicting nature of their designated states.
When Riley turns eleven, she is met with the news of her family's big move. This upending of her life sends all five core emotions into a state of panic. Joy manages to keep everyone in good spirits until they arrive at the worndown new house that she is set to be living in. Even in the face of certain disappointment, Joy does her best to reframe every negative situation with a positive light, and it works for a time, but all good things must come to an end, including Joy's handle on the emotional regulation of our resident pre-teen.
It's important for the viewer to understand that every time one of the emotions says a line, it is a fleeting thought that Riley herself is thinking. As soon as minor negative situations arise, each of the emotions begin to spin out of control, expressing Riley's eomtional instability and volativity, with her thinking that her Dad no longer loves her anymore the moment he has to take a work meeting and she's left in the new location without him as her rock.
During this state of dysregulation, Sadness touches the memories and corrupts them, reframing them in a much more negative light than reason would have her normally able to recall. This leads to a series of similar situations and causes Joy to run damage control to attempt to save all core memories from Sadness screwing them up. This is to signify that in her new state of feeling less safe in her unknown home, she struggles to remember the good times and her emotional dysregulation gives way for overbearing sadness every time she tries to look on the bright side, and ultimately sends the rest of the emotions into a similar state of unrest, such as Anger suggesting "we should lock the door and scream that curse word we know! It's a good one.."
The emotions being in overdrive along with the memory corruption that was caused by the dysregulation and sadness misremembering events as they actually happened causes Riley to begin crying in front of the class on her first day at her new school, and the resulting after-effect sees Joy and Sadness launched into the long-term memory zone, causing the protagonist's Islands of Personality to falter and leaving her emotionally bankrupt.
We could give a shot-by-shot analysis of the entire movie, but we believe this serves as a proper guide to understand what is being represented her while readers enjoy the film for themselves, either for the first time or with the fresh perspective we have hopefully provided in this short dissertation.