Internal world - by George Cai - SPARC '24 JC Blog

I recently watched both Inside Out and Inside Out 2 at the enthusiastic recommendation of a few SPARClers in 2024. On the surface level, the films tell a story of how anthropomorphized emotions like Joy, Sadness, Anxiety, (and more!), try to help Riley, a young girl from Minnesota, respond to extraordinary and ordinary life events: moving cities in elementary school and trying out for a high school hockey camp. They work within the whimsical dreamscape in Riley’s mind, which of course changes as she grows up. I thought the film gave excellent explanations for concepts like why we feel sadness and how anxiety can hurt us by trying too hard to protect us from future harms. But I felt most inspired by how the film concretized Riley’s cognitive internals through a creative mixture of visual and narrative interpretation. spoilers ahead At the beginning of Inside Out 2, Riley’s sense of self is a light blue tree formed from core memories of her being a good friend, hockey teammate, daughter;

I recently watched both Inside Out and Inside Out 2 at the enthusiastic recommendation of a few SPARClers in 2024. On the surface level, the films tell a story of how anthropomorphized emotions like Joy, Sadness, Anxiety, (and more!), try to help Riley, a young girl from Minnesota, respond to extraordinary and ordinary life events: moving cities in elementary school and trying out for a high school hockey camp. They work within the whimsical dreamscape in Riley’s mind, which of course changes as she grows up. I thought the film gave excellent explanations for concepts like why we feel sadness