More Negative Opinions on Inside out 2
This is an expansion of my review of Inside Out 2. I still don't really like it, and after reading other people's reviews, I have even more reasons to think it's bad. I still think the plot resembles the first movie, with Joy and Anxiety undergoing a similar character arc. They both learn that they have to accept all the other emotions, and that they can’t just push other emotions away. I find it difficult to accept Joy's character development, especially in the first movie, as I struggle to believe she can overcome stronger emotions like disgust. I also find it hard to believe that Sadness and Joy wield so much control and power at headquarters, given that they are less influenced by external factors than the other three emotions. In her books on disgust, psychologist Susan Beth Miller notes that disgust, anger, and fear are emotions that are, to some extent, shared and require external stimuli, which is why people often want to share something they find gross with their friends.These books made me think about the movie's ending, where Riley appears to choose Joy, although this emotion cannot be easily controlled by the conscious mind and is not heavily influenced by direct learning, unlike disgust or fear. I dislike this particular scene in the movie because it suggests that people can effortlessly overcome emotions like disgust, fear, and anxiety by simply choosing joy, which is unrealistic, as these emotions often fight back or return with increased intensity. For those of us who've watched the movie, we've observed that opting to feel joy can actually amplify disgust and embarrassment, since disgust perceives the emotion as foreign and not part of oneself, and embarrassment is triggered by witnessing people engage in supposedly happy activities, which can be unsettling and even prompt us to flee the room. In this movie, I believe the disgust or embarrassment response to happy things would likely be depicted by Disgust being unable to acknowledge Joy as a legitimate emotion, a phenomenon not exclusive to disgust, as some individuals are actively fearful of their own emotions, especially Joy. Overall, I dislike the way this franchise handles the concept of emotions and their relationships to other parts of the mind and body.
I had an epiphany about the movie's message: suppressing memories and emotions isn't that different, since memories are only suppressed due to the strong emotions tied to them that Riley dislikes. I think that if the memory were just of a neutral event, like eating breakfast with her parents, it wouldn't be suppressed in the first place – unlike when you forget someone's name while talking to them. The only difference lies in past and present emotional suppression – one could argue that it's still a form of present emotional suppression, such as when she felt disgust or fear in the past, did something foolish, and now feels shame and guilt, immediately pushing the memory away. These are suppressed memories, not repressed memories, meaning that she is actively choosing to ignore them. As anyone familiar with psychology's history knows, repressed memories are problematic because attempts to recover them have not been entirely successful, and it's easy to create false memories, especially in young children. If something is repeated enough and attributed to a credible source, it can become accepted as true.
I'm not afraid to say that I think that part of this movie's appeal lies in people projecting their own emotions onto it, because when you really think about it, we know very little about Riley's friends Bree and Grace, as well as her parents. Honestly, I can't think of a single thing I know about them beyond their shared love of hockey and a particular band. When it comes to her parents, they share a love of hockey and a hatred of broccoli. Oh, and her dad works for a startup. That's really all. However, there's a significant difference between knowing facts about a character and truly understanding them as a fully fleshed-out person with their own life, personality, likes, and dislikes.
Many Pixar movies, except for Toy Story to some extent, struggle with this issue because we don't get to know Andy, his sister Molly, and their mother well, largely due to their limited screen time, which makes it harder to reveal their characters. Unlike Bree and Grace, these two characters have established personalities from their initial introductions. I also think this isn't as big of a deal in Toy Story because the plot doesn't rely on them being important to the main character, since Andy isn't our main character, but Riley is. Riley's personality, as portrayed, is largely defined by her supposedly happy-go-lucky demeanor and near-perfect persona, but the movie asks us to believe she's a good kid who's simply making mistakes, despite the fact that her actions constitute criminal behavior. I don't really care about her or her emotions regarding the loss of her friends, as we don't know enough about them to be invested in her relationship with them. It seems unnatural that she's developing anxiety over losing them after only two years, especially given that she seems to have forgotten about her friends in Minnesota, whom she knew for 11 years. I believe this is largely due to poor writing and overly restrictive world-building, which confines her character to her inner thoughts and emotions, making her uninteresting. However, a developing teenager would likely experience more intriguing emotions, such as disgust, fear, and the struggle to balance romantic love, lust, and risk-taking, which would have a greater emotional impact. Anger and sadness have to grapple with the big injustices, consequences, and failures in her life that might destroy joy to an extent or lessen her prominence and power.
Unlike DreamWorks or Illumination, I don't think Pixar will ever explore harder topics in their sequels, such as the consequences of breaking and entering, losing oneself, and facing repercussions as an adult, both legally and within one's friend circle, where being fake can lead to ostracism. As for the personified emotions themselves, as I mentioned in my first post, I didn't care about any of the new emotions, especially Anxiety. As someone who has experienced envy from others due to my possessions, I have no love for the emotion or the character. I strongly believe that envy should not be trivialized, and it's certainly not healthy; although it may provide some insight, it can be destructive to others when they sense envy in someone. It sours relationships even if the person doesn’t act on it.I don’t think anxiety needs to exist as its own character because fear could have literally just covered it, and by definition, it can’t exist without fear anyway. I found their arbitrary distinction between fear and anxiety utterly ridiculous because I find the distinction in psychology utterly ridiculous. I've always considered embarrassment, shame, and guilt to be closely linked with disgust, as they often work together; therefore, I find it confusing that embarrassment is associated with sadness. It was a weird choice, despite Disgust's reluctance, 'you want me to go up there.' I think it would have made more sense for Disgust and Fear to return to headquarters, as they would have a better chance of dealing with Anxiety, since she can't exist without them. Alternatively, it might have been better to have them join her, given Fear's concern for Riley's safety and Disgust's concern for Riley's social and bodily perfection. Ennui's character design is, ironically, unappealing to me because it breaks the laws of biology and physics too much.