Western culture has a long history of emotional anxiety,

by which I mean anxiety about emotions.

Thinkers from the Classical period to the Modern

have pitted emotion against reason

as opposing forces vying for the mind's control.

An emotional person was seen as weak giving in

to the path of least resistance to base desires

ruled by capricious feelings.

Yoda: "Fear is the path to the Dark Side."

The strong on the other hand would rule their emotions with reason.

"Everyone feels pressure; the point is don't let it show."

Disney personified this struggle in a short 8-minute cartoon

from 1933 called, aptly, 'Reason and Emotion'.

"Within the mind of each of us, these two wage a ceaseless battle for mastering."

The short is a lightly disguised propaganda piece

hardening Americans against fear tactics

used by the Axis powers in World War 2.

But it was nonetheless a point of reference for

the Pixar team led by director Pete Docter,

responsible for the film 'Inside Out'.

Docter's film is a far more nuanced take on the

inner workings of the mind,

appropriate for a post-40 and post-culture evolution age

when we're encouraged, ostensibly at least,

to embrace emotions

rather than urged to master them.

The film tells the story of the eleven year old Riley

as she navigates a move across the country

and, more centrally, how five emotions

Joy, the leader,

Sadness, Fear, Disgust and Anger

balance the control of her mind

from a mission control-like headquarters

In this model, each day consists of discrete moments

colored by one of the five emotions

which are sent during sleep to a vast archive

of long-term memories

Very rarely, an experience is so formative

that it creates a core memory which

goes on to form the basis of Riley's personality

imagined as theme park islands

When Joy and Sadness are accidentally ejected

from Headquarters, the film chronicles

their cathartic journey through several other mental regions

including Imagination Land,

a Dream Production company

that looks like the Paramount lab,

Abstract Thought,

and a Subconscious Jail.

The catharsis comes when Joy realises that

Sadness is not only useful,

but essential, perhaps even more essential than she is

to Riley's harmonious mental functioning

and overall happiness.

The film itself and its message to embrace

sadness, to feel what needs feeling

is surely a token of progress against

our long standing emotional anxiety

But is this model of the mind and its emotions

an accurate one ?

'Inside Out' bases its theory of emotions

in large part on the work of Paul Ekman,

an influential scientist in the psychology of emotion

Ekman posits that there are seven basic emotions

with universal facial signals,

the ones featured in the film, plus two

that were cut: surprise and contempt.

These basic emotions are ubiquitous,

the world over, Ekman says, and can be read

on the faces of anyone,

whether that's by an astute listener

or facial recognition software like those

Ekman has helped develop controversially

for security and marketing uses.

Ekman and other consultants on the film

have praised Inside Out for providing a model

for kids that is engaging

as well as scientifically sound.

But though Ekman's model may be

the dominant one in the psychology of emotion

right now, it's by no means the only.

Indeed, the field is a far more fractious one

than the film scientific consultants let on.

'Inside Out' seems to suggest that

a child's experiences will be defined by

whichever emotion is at the helm.

What's more of that overall personality

determined by colored core memories

has an emotional driver.

This model stands opposite to the key insights

of psychoanalysis for example, which holds that

emotions can be transferred, transformed

or distorted expressions of unconscious ideas

and repressed experiences.

In other words, feelings of sadness or joy

or fear, are frequently far removed

from their causes.

Understanding them as specific entities is

troublesome because they are often not

what they seem to be,

which is to say that understanding emotion

as the driver and not the expression of ideas

and experience may ignore underlying causes.

Indeed, the idea that emotions or memories can be

separate or discrete in any way is a dubious one.

The film itself begins to challenge this

at the end when the control panel in Headquarters

is expanded to fit all the emotions

and when the memory orbs start to reflect

mixed experience.

But a sense that experience can be quantified,

pervades the film.

And, like anything, that may reflect more about

our culture at the moment than the science itself.

For Joy and Sadness, the scariest place in the film

isn't the subconscious prison

that houses Riley's worst fears,

but a giant pit in the centre of Riley's mind

where memories are forgotten forever

without any hope of recall.

In an increasingly data-driven culture

where more data equals more truth,

the greatest anxiety of all,

is the loss of information.

And the headquarters of Riley's mind

does feel a bit manajurial

with its control panel and user manuals,

and Riley a bit like an automaton,

controlled by a highly sophisticated

technocratic operation.

The decision-making process is a bit wonky too,

since the latest neuroscience tells us

that the frontal lobe enacts a kind of executive function

that mediates between the emotions

in the limbic system, and higher cognitive functions

like reflection and critical thinking,

obviously not always in favour of the latter.

Maybe at this point you're saying the same thing

as the voice in my own head:

it's a kid's movie, it's a comedy!

and that's very true.

And the director, Pete Docter,

has never held this film up as an academic

or therapeutic tool.

He admits the need for poetic and comedic licence,

adding an executive function like

the kind I just mentioned for example,

would no doubt made the film too complex

as would any number of other things,

like the two basic emotions he left out,

or any other emotion.

I don't think his dramatic instincts

can be questioned here

Under the premises of the emotional model

that 'Inside Out' presents,

the narrative unfolds with grace, subtlety,

and intense pointiancy.

I'll leave the formal critique to someone else,

but there's no doubt that this is masterful filmmaking.

I had the tears to prove it.

But it does raise questions about the effect

of popular models of the mind.

Pixar tells stories so mythic and archetypal,

and so well, that it's all but impossible

not to internalise some of their elements,

especially for kids.

If the result is that kids learn earlier and better

why it's important to accept and expect

sadness, then I think it's unquestionably a good thing.

But Sadness and Joy and Fear and Disgust and Anger,

are not discreet things, or self-contained,

or even fully internal.

Neither are personality traits, or, for that matter,

personalities.

Any model of emotion is going to reflect a split

between biology and culture,

between neuroscience and theoretical psychoanalysis.

Don't let anyone tell you that that debate has been decided

one way or the other.

There are as many emotional theories

as there are emotional psychologists.

What's interesting and ironic about 'Inside Out',

is that Riley may come of as a bit robotic,

but a more complex and complete framework

for the inner workings of the mind

can be found in Joy herself:

a character who questions and reflects,

who turns inward, not to another smaller headquarters,

but a cauldron of indistinct compounds of feeling,

influenced by chemistry, situation, and other people.

'Inside Out' may not be perfectly accurate,

but the film inspires something more important

than that, something that doesn't require

scientific exactness.

Emotional intelligence.

It is a sunny day outside right now, hey everybody!

Thanks for watching! Uhm, I love Pixar generally but I love this movie just cause it gives you so much

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