englishi

Mental Illness

In the film proposed Inside Out by Pete Docter, the director gives imagery of mental illness through relationships, emotions, and growth. It portrays what it is like to be inside of a young girl's head and truly the emotions she encounters throughout her everyday life. The film portrays the life of a 11 year old girl named Riley who was uprooted from her happy and simple life in Minnesota and taken to San Francisco, where she experiences various changes in her life. (i'm not sure if i should put more here or not).

Riley tends to struggle with depression in the new city as she tries to navigate through a world that is frightful and intimidating. However, that is only half of the story. Arguably, the main characters in the film are the five emotions Riley has and how they impact her everyday life: Joy, Sadness, Anger, Fear, and Disgust.

The relationship between Riley and her parents gets more personal as the viewer dissects the shape and form of the emotions inside their head. For her father, they are all shaped as the Anger character, and are all male with a mustache. Although he does love both his wife and daughter, it seems as though he does not understand them as well as he would wish to. As for the mother, her emotions all relate back to the character sadness. They all have their different emotions, yes, but they are all in the shape and form of the sadness character, because she knows what sadness feels like and she is grateful for the things that make her and her family happy. Even though Riley's parents have their own emotions trying to handle their child as well as possible, they were truly no help to Riley as she lost Joy for an emotion and Anger took over.

As Riley channels the emotions she encounters the true meaning of her happiness. In fact, towards the end of the film, when Joy sacrifices some of her fellow emotions, specifically Sadness. Riley seems to dig deeper in her true self and find a new form of Happiness. Throughout the film, the main takeaway from Riley, and mostly Joy, is that happiness is never truly just about the feeling of joy. That the people have to understand the feeling of anger, the feeling and emotion of Fear, the feeling of Disgust and Sadness to understand the Joy in their lives. Also at the fact that happiness is not forced, that there are some parts of the human body that have memories someone may have encountered that can not understand the other emotions we may have. However, that the experience or memory one may have can change and develop into a new idea or new feeling.

The last main takeaway from this innocent film is the growth one individual can make with every single one of the emotions that are inside of them. Towards the beginning of the film, Joy tries her best to keep Sadness away from Riley. She tries to persuade sadness into becoming somewhat happy. She attempted to understand the emotions of what it is like to be happy and enjoy moments, however, the moving and starting at a new school and losing the connection Riley had with her parents, not even a bubble could keep Sadness in. Not until the end of the film when Joy realizes she can not change any of the emotions to be like her, the only thing she can do is understand why they have their feelings and that Riley is allowed to use them at anytime she wants.

All in all, Inside Out has never been the first attempt to bring awareness to the Mental Illness and how it can help the younger children as they get older. It is hard to realize that yet another story is told and still so many people in the process were touched and could relate. This is a prime example of the strength and guidance of the media and what it shows the viewers who do not necessarily understand. A shift that, hopefully will help viewers foster deeper and more compassionate connections to themselves and those around them.