SADNESS IS AS IMPORTANT AS JOY

Would you believe that I had only just watched Inside Out for the first time today? Like, why did I only watch this film today? Anyway, can I just say that this film is perfect for those who struggle with depression and other type of mood disorders and generally with their mental health to make them understand what goes through their head and understand their emotions especially acknowledging that sadness is a necessary and an important emotion.

 
I guess you all know the plot of the movie. Five emotions manage the brain activity of Riley. Joy, Fear, Disgust, Anger and Sadness with Joy being the “leader” and making sure that Riley is always happy. But when Riley goes through a huge change in her life, Joy has her work cut out for her. But then Joy and Sadness got sucked into a tube that made them travel to a different place inside Riley’s head with Riley’s core memories, their goal was to get Joy back to the “head quarters” because without Joy and the core memories, Riley doesn’t have a personality and she won’t be happy.

 
Throughout the movie I thought Joy was the most important character and emotion, I’m not saying that Joy wasn’t important but then towards the end when Joy was stuck in the “forgotten memories black hole”, Joy found a specific memory of Riley where she was sad that made her parents comfort her and made her feel better again. That’s when Joy realized that Sadness was the one who could fix Riley’s situation. 

 

 
As much as possible Joy would never let Sadness “drive” Riley’s thoughts. Joy would always disregard Sadness for the thought of she might mess things up and Joy always wanted Riley to just have happy memories. But then Riley’s mind got really messed up without her core memories and only three emotions was “controlling” her brain to the point that she was really empty and not feeling anything at all. Joy and Sadness got back to the head quarters just in time and Sadness took over, making Riley confide to her parents about what was going on and that’s the time that the five emotions learned to worked together and not just let one emotion control Riley.

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I would like to give props to Disney again for creating yet another great animated film where it depicts what happens inside our brains and what we can’t explain. Like, when Riley didn’t have core memories and her “islands of personalities” went down and somehow led to Riley being lost and depressed. It shows that our personality plays a huge part in our life and without it we might feel incomplete to the point of feeling empty. And also props to the creator for pointing out that Sadness is an important emotion, they try to tell us that once in a while it’s okay to feel sad and we need to acknowledge that emotion. It actually also shows that it is okay to seek for help and seeking for help can lead to making you feel better which is very significant to the people who has depression, anxiety or any other mental health illness because as we all know most of them struggle with opening up and talking about their situation. Never be ashamed to talk about your struggles it makes you stronger and talking about it to someone will take that huge luggage off your shoulders. 

 
I love the fact that this is an animated film where kids can enjoy watching it but at the same time adults can also enjoy it and might also pick up something from it. I’m hoping that there will be a sequel because I was sensing one with a puberty story which I think will be so much more interesting because we all know that being a teenager is one of the most complicated time of a person’s life with all the hormones and changes that are going on.

 

Have you watched the film? What did you think? 😊

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