Inside Out 2 Isn't Just For Kids: How Pixar Explores Mental Health Visually, Narratively and Culturally

Growing is something that everyone must face and doing so can be quite difficult. However, adolescence is typically the period where we begin to feel overwhelming emotions and find difficulties in managing and understanding them. For adults, it can be difficult to find someone or something that relates to their mental health struggles. While understanding that people experience many emotions, Pixar released Inside Out in 2015 which captured the attention of viewers across all ages through its deep discussion on emotions then, released Inside Out 2 which dove deeper by exploring mental health through the new character, Anxiety. However, what makes Inside Out 2 so significant is not only its way of showing commonly felt emotions but how its visual storytelling, narrative structure and audience engagement creates a larger discussion about mental health in the film industry.

The first installment of Inside Out caught the attention of millions of viewers across various age groups by personifying human emotions through Riley allowing viewers to embrace the feelings we experience. Inside Out 2 builds upon this as Riley is now a teenager and battles the challenges of adolescence. In the film, we are introduced to three more personified emotions, anxiety, envy, and embarrassment with anxiety being the one of the main parts of the film. Through many moments in the movie, we are shown how overwhelming moments affect us mentally which has allowed us to feel empathy and understand Riley based on the things we have experienced.

But Inside Out 2 sparks a larger cultural conversation about our mental health. In today's world, discussion about our mental health has become more important than ever and Inside Out 2 serves as a timely example of making our emotional battles, especially through tough times, normalized. In one scene of the film, anxiety takes over the dashboard in Riley's mind. It caused her to experience an anxiety attack during her hockey tryouts as she felt the pressure of wanting to perform at a high level. While as teens or even adults, we may not have felt pressure like her during a hockey tryout this makes me reflect on a time when I felt anxiety because of the pressure of wanting to perform well on a job interview.

Inside Out 2 also bridges the gap between the generation of today's children and adults. For children, this movie is an entertaining way for them to understand the feelings they experience. For adults, this movie not only serves as nostalgia from the first film that may have been released when they were younger but also as a perspective on parenting, the growth of themselves and their children, and even their emotional resilience. For example, I was 15 years old when the first Inside Out was released and was 20 when the second one came out. Throughout the movie I found myself comparing my own past experiences to the things Riley encountered such as her trying to fit in with a certain group of people.

Ultimately the exploration of Riley's emotions in Inside Out 2 not only serves its purpose of entertaining an audience but creates a larger topic of mental health struggles across all ages through its new character anxiety. But how exactly does Inside Out 2 compact this larger discussion into a 96 minute film? Primarily through the stylistic and narrative use followed by the audience engagement after the film's release. Through an analysis of these three aspects, we will explore how Inside Out 2 effectively uses particular styles in its animation, narrative to redefine conflict resolution and finally how the audience's reaction to these reflects its larger conversation of mental health across all ages.

Visualizing Mental Health Through Style

To start, Inside Out 2 helps us visualize one of the biggest challenges of mental health, anxiety throughout the film. Inside Out 2 helps people visualize an anxiety attack through its animation, editing and sound design. Through the film's stylistic approach, Pixar ensures that viewers who have never experienced an anxiety attack can feel empathy for Riley while those that can relate see their experience reflected in the movie.

This is particularly seen through the anxiety attack scene near the conclusion of the film. This scene shows Riley during her hockey tryout experiencing an anxiety attack after getting put on the bench and feeling the pressure of not playing well enough build up. While not everyone may have experienced an anxiety attack in their life, Inside Out 2 ensures that through the editing, animation, and sound design of this scene, those who can relate feel for Riley, and those who can not, feel the intensity of someone experiencing an anxiety attack.

Through the editing of the scene, we get a deep sense of the panic Riley is feeling. Throughout the scene, we see jump cuts transitioning back and forth between inside Riley’s mind and the anxiety attack that is building up inside her mind. The scene begins with Anxiety frantically pressing buttons on the dashboard as the camera cuts to a close-up shot of Riley’s sweaty face squinching then panning down to her foot quickly tapping as she’s beginning to feel the effects of anxiety (0:01). The camera then cuts to her chest where we get a close up shot of Riley tightly clenching her jersey (0:05). The back and forth between Riley and her mind along with the tight shots helps us get a sense of actions that occur as anxiety builds up inside us. As I find the foot tapping when anxious to be quite relatable, Pixar wants to use these close-up shots to help us grasp the feeling of anxiousness.

Inside the mind of Riley, the animations Pixar uses continue to help us understand the mental health struggle portrayed in this scene. Here, Pixar shows Anxiety trying to control the dashboard quickly. They animate Anxiety to move around at quick speeds as a representation of thoughts spiraling. (0:14). The fantasized animation continues by showing Anxiety running around so fast that it creates a tornado surrounding the dashboard that makes a huge windstorm inside Riley’s mind (0:37). In addition the light in this scene showing inside Riley's mind being dim and far less colorful than the rest of the movie adds to Pixar’s attempt to set the tone of an anxiety attack. Pixar is aware that someone can't experience an actual tornado in their mind, however, the idea of a tornado helps us viewers to visualize how our minds are when anxiety takes control.

The sound design in this scene adds to the tension of not only the feeling of anxiety. During the scenes that show Riley having an anxiety attack, her actions are accompanied by a loud heartbeat and heavy breathing along with intense music playing in the background (0:23). However when it transitions to inside Riley's mind we get loud intense music with the sound of heavy wind blowing (0:40). These sounds help draw viewers into the mind of someone experiencing this and allows us to audibly feel the tension that comes with anxiety attacks. Furthermore, the voice of anxiety glitching along with the sound of her frantically tapping the dashboard, further shows the intensity of feeling anxiety (0:05).

This scene in Inside Out 2 allows viewers to visually and audibly visualize and relate to an anxiety attack, a moment when we are mentally weak. As mentioned previously, we don’t have a literal storm occurring in our mind but Inside Out 2 uses these elements to help us relate and visualize a real challenge faced during mental health battles. While for younger audiences this scene helps express the challenges of mental health when growing up while for adults, it encourages them to not only relate to the scene but also feel empathy for those that experienced these mental health challenges.

A Narrative Approach to Understanding Mental Health

Building off of the stylistic choices that place viewers into Riley's struggles, Inside Out 2 continues to build off the discussion of mental health through its narrative structure by ultimately exploring that anxiety is not something that can be defeated. Like most movies, Inside Out 2, sticks to the normal three-act structure. However, unlike the first Inside Out where there was no villain, Inside Out 2 introduces Anxiety as the antagonist who thinks she's bringing peace but brings chaos instead. The first part of the movie sets up the disruption as the existing emotions from the first film are essentially pushed to the side to make room for Anxiety and the other new emotions. The second act introduces us to the rising conflict as Anxiety begins to take full control of all of Riley’s decisions leading her to believe she must impress her hockey teammates. This leads to the main conflict during Riley’s tryouts where the pressure becomes too much and causes her to have an anxiety attack. Finally, the conclusion of the movie resolves the conflict by not eliminating anxiety but by accepting her as an emotion that can’t be gotten rid of.

One of the biggest storytelling choices that Pixar makes in Inside Out 2 is how it presents the conflict. Unlike typical animated films that have fast-paced action-packed scenes during the climax such as The Incredibles, Inside Out 2 creates an internal conflict for Riley through her personified emotions. The first Inside Out avoids a traditional villain, and centers the conflict between Joy and Sadness. However, Inside Out 2 introduces us to Anxiety who ultimately works against joy thinking that she is helping when things are only getting worse with her. This is seen as Anxiety repeatedly says she's trying to help Riley throughout the film. This continues into the second act as Anxiety continues to gain influence as Riley tries to impress her hockey teammates and experiences an anxiety attack which is where the narrative and stylistic choices play a large role in pulling viewers into her emotional battle.

Instead of having a traditional conflict resolution where the villain or source of the conflict is defeated, Inside Out 2 gives Riley a more realistic resolution. In many animated films, the protagonist experiences hardship and the film concludes with order being restored. However, Riley never gets rid of Anxiety but her emotions learn to work with anxiety and prevent her from taking over. Pixar uses this premise as a way to show that all emotions serve a purpose in making up who we are and raising conversation about mental health. Inside Out 2 uses these emotions to ultimately show that even emotions that we consider as bad have a purpose and we can never truly eliminate these negative emotions but can control them.

Audience Analysis

Although Inside Out 2 has taken many steps through its style and way of discussing mental health, the response from audiences shows that the film's narrative on mental health is universally understood across multiple age groups. Since the release of Inside Out 2, the film has created widespread discussions on how the film made them emotional, particularly through its discussion of mental health and anxiety. Viewers from a wide range of ages have resonated with the movie for its relatable debate of mental health along with how accurate the film portrays it. One of the biggest ways Inside Out 2’s cultural footprint has been shaped is through its audience engagement on Reddit and TikTok. On these platforms, viewers have discussed how the film closely relates to their mental health struggles.

One important aspect of Inside Out 2’s audience response is how adults are able to resonate with Riley’s experiences. In a Reddit discussion post, a user started a discussion about how Inside Out 2 made him emotional as a 28-year-old male. He said that on the way to the movie, he made a joke to his fiancee hoping he would not find the new character, Anxiety, too relatable, and sure enough, he found himself in tears during the movie. This led to responses from people in their 20s, 30s and 40s to join him in reflecting on how the film made them feel. For example, one comment said, “If you didn’t cry during that movie, something is wrong with you.” This ultimately shows that Inside Out 2 is a film that is not just a children's movie, but a film that all adults can resonate with.

Not only did the film relate to the current feelings people experience, but audiences resonated with the film's discussion on adolescent mental health as well. In another Reddit discussion, viewers discussed essentially how well the film portrays how much puberty sucks as a teen and the mental health battles that come with it. Not only did this film resonate with adults, but it allowed teens and people in their early 20s to reflect on the meaningful mental health discussion felt considering they were much younger when the first Inside Out was released in 2015. In a TikTok post of a young girl crying because Pixar released this film as she was going through puberty herself started a conversation in the comments. Similar to the first Reddit post mentioned previously, people in the comments shared how old they are but instead, included how much the film meant to them and how they anticipated that the movie would make them just as emotional as the first one. In addition, a second TikTok that relatively discussed the same thing except after seeing the film started a conversation of people once again mentioning how the emotions closely resonate with them.

Conclusion

The response from viewers on Inside Out 2 shows how its discussion of mental health particularly through the struggles of anxiety and growing up deeply resonates with audiences. Viewers have ultimately viewed the film as not just a story of a teenage girl experiencing puberty but also as a way of reflecting on their mental health.

So ultimately all of this means that Inside Out 2 is not just a sequel made just for kids, but a film that feels impactful to millions of people regardless of their age because of the film's ability to make mental health relatable and understandable for everyone. We can see that through the stylistic choices used throughout the film,and the narrative storytelling choices used to portray anxiety and mental health makes it easy for viewers to relate to Riley’s experiences. But one of the most important aspects is the audience response and ability to reflect on their own mental health struggles and understand them on a deeper level. Ultimately, Inside Out 2 shows that animated films are not an opportunity to just entertain an audience but also help the audience understand themselves in a fun but emotional way. This also reminds us that all emotions have a place in our lives regardless of how bad it is and that the film's overall message will continue to impact people for generations to come.