Riley's Sense of Self and What I Wish Had Been Different About Inside Out 2

This week I went to the theaters with a group of friends to watch Pixar Animation’s latest film, Inside Out 2.

Unfortunately I had yet to see Inside Out 1…which meant that on the way to the theater I was looking up the synopsis and reading Wikipedia's quick sum-up of the first movie. I needn’t have worried, however. Inside Out 2 was easy to follow and I quickly picked up on what was going on.

Our story follows Riley, now thirteen years old and entering teenage-dom. Her old emotions, Joy, Sadness, Anger, Fear, and Disgust are living their best lives inside Riley’s head, making sure their girl is happy by throwing all her dark thoughts far away, deep down in her head where Riley won’t think about them. Like Joy says: “We save the best, and toss the rest!”

Everything’s going smoothly…until suddenly Riley hits puberty, and new emotions suddenly show up prepared to run the show. These emotions are Anxiety, Embarrassment, Envy, Ennui (boredom/nonchalance) and occasionally even Nostalgia. 

To Joy and the other old emotion's horror, Anxiety and her team have a whole different idea of how Riley’s emotions should be run…and when Joy and her friends don’t agree, Anxiety has them locked away, telling Joy, “Riley doesn’t need you anymore.”

Anxiety proceeds to take Riley’s sense of self—her beliefs about herself and the world around her—and throw it away into the depths of Riley’s mind alongside all her bad thoughts and memories, convinced that Riley needs a new definition of self, one that will prepare her for all the different scenarios that life might throw at her. Riley’s old sense of self, the one built from her childhood, had embraced simple, positive ideas like “I’m a good friend”, “I’m brave”, and the main, overarching theme that:

“I’m a good person.”

Riley's old sense of self; the one that tells her positive things about herself

But suddenly Riley’s sense of self is gone…and with Anxiety in complete control, Riley begins to ostracize her old friends, convinced that she needs to begin to make new friends with the cool girls at hockey camp and take advantage of her opportunities…instead of using camp time to enjoy her old friends before they transfer to another high school in the fall.

I found this part of the film especially relatable. Almost every teen knows how it feels to want to fit in with who they believe are the cool kids, and we’ve probably all been the chameleon of the group at times, going with the flow just to be liked and to fit in. I laughed when Riley started worrying about how much her arms were swinging when she walked; clearly remembering the time someone told me that I swung my arms a lot when I walked, something I became self-conscious about for months afterward.

While Joy and her friends fight to escape Anxiety’s prison and recover Riley’s old sense of self, Anxiety begins to build a new sense of self for Riley, one that echoes lies like “if I’m good at hockey, then I’ll have friends”. As Anxiety keeps planting these ideas in Riley’s head, Riley’s new sense of self takes on a new theme: instead of “I’m a good person” it’s now “I’m not good enough.”

Anxiety, realizing that this isn’t good for Riley, goes into overdrive, taking total control of Riley and doing everything she can to make her better. Riley starts making more bad decisions, going as far as sneaking a look into the hockey coaches’ notebook to find out whether she’s made the cut for the team. She discovers to her disappointment that the coach has her labeled as “Not ready yet”, and with the help of Anxiety panics and decides that she has to do everything she can to make the last day of hockey camp count…which means doing absolutely anything to impress the coach.

While Riley is making these poor choices, Joy is struggling with what Anxiety told her: that Riley doesn't need her anymore.

It's then that she delivers what I think is the most powerful line of the movie:

"Maybe this is what happens when you grow up. You feel less joy."

Man, does that resonate! Growing up is so often marked by losing more and more of your joy. We so easily forget the simple, whole-hearted love we had when we were young and allow ourselves to become caught up in the problems of our world.

But lucky for Riley, Joy decides to press on anyway, realizing that Riley does need to have Joy.

Even when she's grown up.

What a great reminder. This side theme was definitely my favorite part of the whole movie.

Joy and Sadness in the belief system, where Riley's sense of self grows.

As Riley’s last day at hockey camp arrives, Joy and her friends return, finally having recovered Riley’s old sense of self; though in the process, they’ve also released all of Riley’s bad thoughts and memories back into Riley’s mind, filling her with uncertainty as she suddenly starts to remember all of her mistakes and failings.

All the emotions but Anxiety have realized by now that Riley’s not doing well, and together they destroy Riley’s new sense of self and replace it with her old one. By then it’s too late. Riley already knows the truth that she’s not good enough, and the reinforced idea that she’s “a good person” just confuses her more, sending her into an all-out panic attack. Joy is the first to realize this, and taking away Riley’s old sense of self, she and the other emotions step back to let Riley grow a new sense of self all on her own. 

Riley’s newly created sense of self is a combination of the other two. It echoes the ideas “I’m not good enough” “I’m a good person” “I’m brave” “But I get scared sometimes” “I’m a good friend” and “I make mistakes”. It’s the paradox of emotions we all know so well, especially we teenagers.

Overall, Inside Out 2 was a great movie. I give it a solid 7/10. The animation was of course gorgeous and the soundtrack just as much so. I was really impressed by the story and the premise and found the whole movie very relatable. I can clearly remember the years of 12 and 13 which were a whirlwind of spiking new emotions, and I thought Pixar portrayed these in an honest way without skipping over the messy bits.

However, I couldn’t help but feel that a big piece was missing from the theme: and it had to do with Riley’s sense of self. 

As I was sitting in the theater, about halfway through the movie I realized with a jolt what I wanted Riley’s sense of self to be by the end of the story.

 “I’m not good enough. And that’s okay.”

I was wrong thinking that would be the final message. Pixar instead introduced the conflicting ideas of "I'm a good person" and "I'm not good enough" that finally become Riley’s sense of self. It works to some degree because these feelings are true for everyone.

But at the same time…this theme is not true. 

Riley, just like all of us, isn’t a “good person”, but she is, just like all of us, not good enough.

What would have been a true message and a healing sense of self for Riley is the truth that she wasn’t good enough. And that’s okay.

The problem with this being the movie’s theme, and the reason that it wasn’t even on the table for Pixar, is that apart from the gospel this can’t be a redemptive message.

 “I’m not good enough and that’s okay” isn’t satisfactory for us. Why is it okay to not be good enough? Who says that it is? And why should we believe them?

The gospel is necessary to complete this picture of failure and lostness. 

It’s only in Christ that we can view our incompetence as beautiful.

“As it is written:

None is righteous, no, not one;

no one understands;

no one seeks for God.

All have turned aside; together they have become worthless;

no one does good,

not even one.”

-Romans 3:10-12

"I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.

Wonderful are your works;

my soul knows it very well."

-Psalm 139: 14

"God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him."

-1st John 4:16

And that’s why a progressive animation company like Pixar can’t —won’t— provide that for us.

Every good Christian storyteller knows that a gospel story doesn’t need to have Jesus’ name written everywhere and the bullet points of the gospel listed out all neat and orderly to be understood.

All it needs is an Aslan, an Edmund, and a White Witch. 

Inside Out 2 is the first movie Pixar has released in years that hasn’t been chock-full of in-your-face propaganda; lgbtq+ promotion, feminist agendas, and themes of self-obsession.

Inside Out 2 is also the highest grossing debut film in Pixar’s history.

I hope Pixar takes the hint.

Don’t you?

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What did you think of Inside Out 2? Share your thoughts in the comments below!