“All the feels” may have already had its moment in the social media sun but I am bringing it out of the shadowlands today. I can’t think of a more appropriate phrase to capture exactly how I felt after seeing (my new favorite Pixar film) Inside Out. It quite literally gives you ALL THE FEELS.
If you’ve been living under a rock and somehow missed the premise for this glittering gem of a film - it takes you into the wonderful world that is the mind of an 11 year old girl named Riley where you meet the five central emotions that control her brain:
Joy
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| Voiced by the eternally effervescent and intoxicatingly chirpy Amy Poehler. Let’s be honest, Amy IS joy. |
Sadness
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Disgust
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| Voiced by my dream celeb bestie, Mindy Kaling, who is the perfect combination of adorable and revulsion all rolled into one. I expected nothing less than a bundle of green sass and it was expertly delivered! |
Anger
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| Lewis Black brought the huffing, the puffing, and permanently peeved with a temper that can’t be topped. |
Fear
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| Anxiously voiced by the hilarious Bill Hader, he brought the panic, dread, and jitters alive! |
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Shoutout to Richard Kind who brought all of the imagination, love, and heartache to Riley’s imaginary friend, Bing Bong. I get teary eyed just thinking about him…
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It sounds all kinds of cute and fun, right? Well, it is! But it is also so so SO much more.
This brilliant and beautifully crafted animation brings the mysteries and inner workings of our minds alive in the most colorful, quirky, and ingenious manner. There are no villains or battles of good vs evil. It is hilarious. It is sad. It is wonderfully clever. But the beating heart of this story is very simple - it is about change, growing up, and the way in which our emotions shape us.
As a woman who was once an 11 year old girl, Inside Out struck an especially emotional chord with me. It got me thinking about how we react to emotions as a society...particularly when it comes to women. We are told our entire lives to “be happy”, to basically walk around like permanent balls of bouncing sunshine. My personal favorite example of this (which often comes out of the mouths of strange men on the street and makes fire red flames shoot out of my ears), “Smile girl. I bet you look so much prettier when you smile.” This has always brought out the Anger raging inside of me! What if I don’t feel like smiling, asshole?! Maybe someone in my family is sick. Maybe I just lost my job. Maybe I am having one of my mind whirling anxiety attacks. Or MAYBE I’m just having an especially crap day! Whatever the reason, please let me walk around with whatever face I FEEL like showing to the world.
This film brought me to tears on so many occasions because at the heart of it is this beautiful and healthy message - it is OKAY to feel sad sometimes. We can’t always be riding high on happiness. Life isn’t just about the peaks, but also what you learn and feel while you are trudging along through the troughs. You are shaped by all of your experiences and the emotions that come with each and every one of them - the joy, the sadness, the disgust, the anger, and the fear.
So thank you Pixar, for reminding us that it is okay to have all the feels.
Peace, Love, + Emotions,
Bekah
