Inside Out: Movie Critique

Inside Out Movie Critique While watching the Pixar movie Inside Out with my little neighbor a few weekends ago I noticed that there were some suggestive scenes that fit into the Communications 270 course. The theme being gender in the media. Inside Out is about a girl named Riley who starts off as a happy and adventurous person. Everything seems to be going great in her life because of her inner emotion named Joy played by Amy Poehler. However, Riley’s mood becomes sour when she finds out that she is moving far away from her current home. The stress of moving causes Riley so much mental anguish that her emotions (characters) of Joy and Sadness are swept off into a deep dark place. All that is left inside her head is the emotions

Riley’s mother asked her how her first day went and she exclaims “it was good I guess, I do not know” (Pixar). Her mother signals the father and we see a hockey game playing in his head with his all male emotions cheering in the background. When we get a snapshot into Riley’s mother’s head we see her all women emotions sighing. One of her emotions exclaims “for this we gave up that Brazilian helicopter piolet” (Pixar). To me this scene within the movie Inside Out is suggesting gender roles. It is suggesting gender roles because we see the constant battle between women and men. The mother’s inner emotions are suggesting that women are supposed to be prim and flaunt themselves to all the boys. The father’s emotions define the typical definition of a man: a sports junky who is loud. Another male gender role I pinpointed within this scene was when Riley began to talk back to her parents. Her father’s inner emotions struggled to keep their composure. Anger was slowly building up as Riley got more and more sassy toward her parents. The father’s anger emotion finally exploded and he tapped his foot angrily and sent Riley to her room. This scene is suggesting to the audience that men are expected to be strong, aggressive, and bold in the eyes of society when it comes to parenting. It is expected of a man to

Three of Riley’s emotions are Joy, Sadness, and Disgust. These emotions are all played by women characters. While Riley’s remaining emotions are Anger and Fear played by men. I feel as if the emotion of Joy played by Amy Poehler might represent gender neutrality. The word joy has no gender designation because anyone can experience this feeling. However, Riley’s character Sadness (played by a female) is always pictured crying at cute and sad moments. This to me is suggesting female gender roles because women are often thought of as always being empathetic and nurturing when something sad/bad happens. The core emotion of Disgust (played by a female) is representing the constant moody emotions of women when things do not go according to plan. Disgust can be pictured in the film as being sarcastic and the major contributor to all Riley’s attitude and outbursts. Riley’s emotion Anger (played by a male character) is pictured within the movie as a hot-head who is screaming and is always on fire. Since this character is male it shows the male gender role of being angry and forceful. The emotion Fear in Inside Out seems to have had a positive mind throughout the entire movie. He did not seem to be scared of anything. Fear portrays the typical male gender role of bravery. Males today in societies eyes are supposed to be brave one hundred percent of the time;