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'Inside Out' : A literal Emotional Rollercoaster.

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"Do you ever look at someone and wonder, 'What is going on inside their head?'"

That is the opening quote to Disney Pixar's Inside Out, and the beginning of a journey which explores an incredible concept as to how the mind works when tackling complex emotions. It is no secret that I am a huge fan of Disney and their collaborations with Pixar, so when I had heard of Inside Out, I was more than ecstatic to get to see it. There's no doubt that the film has gained a huge amount of praise since its release; with its extraordinary and unique narrative and its vibrant and creative visuals, Inside Out has become an animated masterpiece. Jonathan Romney described Inside Out as "in the top rank of Pixar productions with its combination of audacity, intelligence, wit and emotional reward." It is absolute genius in catering to children with its bright rainbow colour scheme and relatable themes, but catering to adults too with references to Roman Polanski's Chinatown and also hitting home with some truths about growing up and struggling to battle with your emotions. So I don't want to call this a 'review' because I feel like it has gained the accolade it deserves; but more of a deconstruction of my theories on the film, and some things that I noticed whilst watching it. Inside Out is set in two dimensions, one is in reality, following the life of the protagonist Riley's, and the other is in her mind to which her emotions are characterized and personified. They struggle to adjust to her new life after a drastic move. Joy and Sadness become lost in the mind of Riley, leaving Disgust, Anger and Fear to rule her life. Joy desperately seeks to find her way back to headquarters and makes a few revelations on the way.

One of my initial thoughts when studying the emotions aesthetics was that they all link together subtly. The colours of the emotions intertwine (as seen in the image below) and essentially introduce the next emotion as they first appear. The different shapes and sizes of the emotions was intentional by the artists as they wanted each emotion's whole demeanor to suit them, as one of the writers Ronnie Del Carmen explains in this article, "The main characters have intentional shapes: Anger is shaped like a brick, Joy a star, Sadness a teardrop and Fear is tall and thin like a nerve."
As baby Riley opens her eyes for the first time, the first emotion to step out from the darkness is Joy; bubbly and bright Joy is distinctly different from the rest of the emotions. She has an aura; she literally glows in order to represent a star which is alluded to through the patterns on her dress. She also differs from the rest because her eyes and hair are a different colour to the her body. Her body is yellow yet she glows blue with blue hair and eyes, therefore linking her to Sadness which is the next emotion to arrive in Riley's mind. Sadness's short and plump stature is as aforementioned, to represent a teardrop; the writers had also suggested that she would be wearing comfortable clothes or pyjamas due to the fact that depressed people would rarely get out of bed. At first glance, the colour of Sadness's glasses would be black or even dark blue to coincide with the rest of her appearance, however upon closer inspection, they are actually purple, which leads us onto the next emotion to arrive in Riley's mind; Fear. Fear is very thin and dainty which is emphatic of fragility, an element which Fear causes. Now, Fear does not link with Disgust as Disgust does with Fear due to her purple neck scarf, however Fear wears a distinct red bow tie, which then links him to Anger. And Anger's tie is red and blue, which creates the full circle on how all the characters are linked.
In headquarters, one thing that stands out in Riley's mind, is that it is very bright and colourful. Even during the beginning of the film we see Riley wearing brightly coloured clothes to emphasize this, however as time goes on and Joy and Sadness become lost, the colours in headquarters fade to grey, and Riley ends up wearing all black at the lowest point in her life so far. These images stood out to me due to the fact that the link between Riley's mind and her clothes was represented so significantly to portray how all her emotions are vital parts of her life, rather than Joy being the only necessary emotion.
(The five emotions from left to right: Anger, Fear, Joy, Disgust and Sadness.)
In Riley's mind, there are personality islands that link to the headquarters where the five emotions reside, something I noticed was that throughout the whole film, family island is the biggest island. It even states this on the Pixar website, "Family Island is by far the largest and strongest of the islands." Now this aspect isn't entirely surprising in the beginning stages of life due to the fact that our families are our main influences growing up, however after the incident where Riley attempts to run away, the mother and father console Riley and the family island is recreated and larger than before. This insinuates that at a time of desperation for Riley, her bond with her parents becomes stronger and still remains the most important aspect in her life.
Riley's parents play a significant role for me in terms of representation. When we dive into the mind of the mother to see her emotions at work; they are all female, and Sadness seems to be the leader of the desk. Whereas, when we see into the father's mind; all his emotions are male and Anger is the leader. These elements could create an outlook into the story of the mother and father. The mother could have issues with depression similar to those which Riley struggles with in the film, and in terms of the father; aggression is a common trait when representing men, therefore anger would be a leader for the majority of male characters. This psychology article explains the male representation saying: "the media constantly present men, and not women, fighting. Parents buy toy guns for boys and dolls for girls." 
After all the hardship that Riley has went through and when Joy and Sadness return to headquarters, Riley seems to have no significant leader in her mind, as all her emotions begin to work together and in harmony much alike the parent's minds. Stan Belot wrote about this mentioning: "One key difference, I reckon, between the control center in an adult's mind (both parents) and a child's mind (Riley's) is the teamwork between the emotions. Mom's and Dad's emotions talk to each other to collaborate, to coordinate their actions." However in terms of why Riley has both male and female emotions would be because she is still young and developing her personality so naturally she would have both feminine and masculine traits; Pixar founder John Lasseter alluded to this when approaching writer Pete Docter after seeing Inside Out saying, "Well, I thought you did it because, as adults, we become more kind of set in our ways."
When looking at Riley's parents; their genetic features of brown hair and brown eyes don't cohere to the fact that Riley has blonde hair and blue eyes, hence leading to the theory that there is a possibility of Riley being adopted. When researching this I found that the writer Pete Docter, also wrote the Toy Story trilogy, to which only one parental figure (the mother) is present throughout the whole series. He also wrote Monsters Inc, where there are two male characters taking care of a child who's lost. And he also wrote Up, the story of a couple who weren't able to have children. So when relating Inside Out to Docter's other works, it is clear that his work never adheres to a quintessential family life. However does it matter that Riley is adopted? I don't think so. It is just a theory. But if it were true, I think it's a nice touch to portray home life in different ways, because then children with adopted parents would be able to relate to the film in an intimate way. Jonathan Sim wrote in depth about the genetics between Riley and her parents in his article however ultimately alluding to my point conveying that: "Why does it matter anyway? It doesn't. Riley being adopted doesn't advance the plot at all."
(Dinner scene: Riley and her parents.)
Now, the imaginary friend character named Bing Bong has been a huge topic when talking about Inside Out, and I can most definitely understand why. I can remember my imaginary friend at twenty one years of age so Bing Bong's character hit very close to home with me and also plucked at a few of my heart strings. Nevertheless his character to me was incredibly compelling because he was very well constructed on his actions and his appearance. Kat Brown describes his character in her article for the Telegraph, "Bing Bong is the perfect depiction of the harum-scarum mind jump of a child’s brain: a friendly, vague mix of favourite things – here, the colour pink, a cat, candy floss and a dolphin." As seen in the picture below, his outfit stands out to me, as it is very reminiscent of Charlie Chaplin's The Tramp character as he has a similar bowler hat, finger-less gloves and a tight fitting jacket with a flower attached; again, this strikes home for me as I grew up watching many of Charlie Chaplin's films as influence from my lovely wee Grandad. This could have been the case for Riley's character too, which therefore leads her imaginary friend to be influenced by this.
Bing Bong's actions often reminded me of the typical view of a child's imaginary friend; he lead's Joy and Sadness into unfortunate situations which cause them hassle and trouble even though he stays optimistic about everything, much alike how children would blame their imaginary friend for breaking something in the house or doing something they weren't supposed to do because 'Bing Bong told me to.' Overall Bing Bong's character was a lovely touch to Inside Out; he added depth to Riley's mind and was lovable, charming and most definitely was the cause of a few tears without a doubt.

(Joy and Sadness meeting Bing Bong.)
I know that this post is slightly different to the others in that I didn't technically 'review' Inside Out, but I wanted this post to be a deconstruction of the film because every little detail with Disney Pixar films has a meaning behind it, and with sharing my thoughts maybe it would make someone else entertain the notion too. The concept of Inside Out is awesome, it is an incredibly detailed film and is now being taught in schools to teach children the importance of the brain, "It’s not often that Hollywood gets credited with introducing kids to brain science, but that’s exactly what this past summer’s Pixar hit, Inside Out, is doing." It is a great representation for children in how emotions aren't just black and white, and how it is okay to feel sad and not happy all the time but its important to talk about them rather than bottle them up. I know Inside Out  has taught me a lot about my own emotions let alone teaching children! However the most important message to take away from Inside Out, is that we are at our best when our emotions work in tandem with each other.

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