The movie “Inside Out” premiered in early June of this year and most recently came out on DVD. Inside Out brought in $91.1 million in U.S. ticket sales in the first week, breaking a Walt Disney Pixar’s record. Overall, it became one of the highest grossing movies of 2015 coming in with $842 million.
Inside Out is about 11 year old Riley and her 5 emotions; Joy, Sadness, Fear, Anger, and the sassiest of all, Disgust.
Although the movie is intended for kids, the movie was filled with far more adult understandings than people think. The movie came into the spotlight when adults began noticing what the movie actually was about: childhood depression.
The beginning of the movie takes place in Minnesota with Riley and her mom and dad. Time goes by and when Riley turns 11 years old, her family has to take a big move to San Francisco for her dad’s new job. Moving across the country and leaving your best friend behind can be really tough on anyone no matter what age they are.
Disaster hits when everything in Riley’s life starts going bad and her emotion Sadness takes over her mind. Childhood depression is just as common as adulthood depression. 1 in 10 children and young people aged 5-16 suffer from a diagnosable mental health disorder and nearly 800,000 children under the age of 10 suffer from severe depression.
Sadly, these statistics are overlooked due to people not believing in mental illnesses. Inside Out shows that depression is something that even children experience and how nobody has control over the mental illness.
In the movie, Joy and Sadness get locked out of “headquarters”, leaving Anger, Fear, and Disgust to work together to keep Riley somewhat happy and functioning.
This movie shined a light on mental health and even if the movie was intended for children, they were easily entertained with the colorful scenes and not to mention Riley’s best imaginary friend Bing Bong, but the adults were more than likely to understand the true meaning of the movie.
The true meaning behind Inside Out is understanding that mental health is just as important as any other health and it should be paid attention to.
Inside Out brought the importance of mental health to the center of the media stage and the public probably wasn’t expecting it but Pixar did a great job bringing out such a powerful movie.
