Movies made for kids don’t always reflect the real world, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing when it comes to entertainment. But those that can provide an accurate depiction of reality have a different kind of value, and psychologists believe Pixar’s Inside Out does just that.
The movie follows an 11-year-old girl, Riley, who moves with her family from Minnesota to the West Coast. The process of relocating and not having any friends can be tough for a kid, and viewers get to be a part of this process with Riley as five of her emotions — joy, sadness, fear, anger and disgust — are personified by individual animated characters.
Dacher Keltner, a psychologist and professor of psychology at the University of California, Berkeley who worked as a consultant to the filmmakers, told NPR, “I think they really nailed it.”
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Keltner said that Pixar did a great job of illustrating what emotions are like for an 11-year-old. “It zeroes in on one of the most poignant times in an individual’s life, which is the transition to the preteen and early teen years, where kids — and, I think, in particular girls — start to really powerfully feel the loss of childhood.”
Along with Keltner, the filmmakers consulted with Paul Ekman, a psychologist and an expert in the study of emotions. Their contribution helped to ensure that the science behind the portrayal of Riley’s emotions and understanding of the world were relatively accurate.
For example, in the film Riley’s memories get locked up when she’s sleeping, guards are seen protecting her subconscious and her experiences turn into abstractions. They also show how certain emotions inevitably affect the experience of the others.
“When you are in a fearful state, everything is imbued with threat and uncertainty and peril,” Keltner said. To demonstrate this, Riley’s happy memories take on a bluish hue when she is sad.
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Keltner also pointed out that one important aspect of this film is that, unlike many other movies or books for kids, sadness isn’t depicted as a bad emotion or one that we don’t want to have. In Inside Out, Sadness is a character that is essential and can actually rescue the other emotions from getting lost in long-term memory.
Keltner said that this is an important distinction for kids and that it makes “a nice statement about how important sadness is to our understanding of who we are.”
