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  • The Many in the One:Depression and Multiple Subjectivities in Inside Out
  • Nicole Markotić (bio)

It seems ironic to me that the only English-language film I am aware of since Spike Jonze's Being John Malkovich (1999) to address multiple subjectivities is a children's film, Pete Docter's Inside Out (2015), a film that troubles the usual way audiences think of the many and the one when it comes to the psyche.1 Being John Malkovich projects one interpretation of multiple subjectivities that occur between the many and the one inside its title character. In Jonze's film, multiple subjectivities mostly play out on a psychical landscape of contested gender and psychotherapy caricature. The film contests commonsensical [End Page 162] ideas about oneness as represented via characterial independence, self-awareness, and autonomy; in effect, the film frequently conflates the imaginary and the real through the corporal manifestation of the celebrity John Malkovich. But unlike conventional representations of oneness, comparable representations of multiple subjectivities are often unsettling. Tellingly, few films have followed the psychological trajectory of Jonze's hit by presenting the self, the one, as potentially "multiple."2

Besides Being John Malkovich, there are only a few other examples of English-language media presenting multiple subjectivities, notably the TV show Herman's Head (Fox, 1991–1994) and Inside Out. Whereas Herman's Head emphasizes conventional gender functions and Being John Malkovich challenges independence and self-awareness, Inside Out suggests a new and underexplored relationship between the many and the one, as the film proposes that every person is made up of composite personalities and that these composites "run the show" in ways that the human "vessel" they inhabit is not only unaware of but also prove necessary for emotional and psychological balance. This children's film is also about depression, and in this brief essay I contend that this multivalent approach to mental disability offers cinema and media studies a strategy to separate depression from sadness, demonstrating how one might alleviate the former through a recognition and acceptance of the latter.3 In addition to depicting a distinction between depression and sadness, Inside Out suggests to viewers that such a distinction matters, that acknowledging emotions will not trigger a mental or emotional disability; rather, sanctioning upsetting emotions offers individuals strategies to avoid suppressing crucial feelings. [End Page 163]

It is unusual for a children's film to portray mental illness, but Inside Out has garnered much acclaim: Variety, for instance, praised it for its "stunningly original concept that will not only delight and entertain the company's massive worldwide audience, but also promises to forever change the way people think about the way people think."4 Reviewers were quick to question the feasibility of having a children's film protagonist managed by five distinct emotions. Although many reviewers—Barnes, Debruge, Scott5—defend the choice to portray emotional misery to young viewers, few focus on the idea of a mind "divided" by multiple subjectivities. In this computer-animated film, eleven-year-old Riley becomes unhappy when her family moves from Minnesota to San Francisco; her profound sadness is soon taken over by depression. In many ways, Riley comes across as a "typical" Midwestern hockey-loving girl, but she is also depicted as a character made up of five autonomous personalities—Joy, Sadness, Anger, Fear, and Disgust—sometimes working cooperatively and sometimes in conflict with each other (Figure 1).

The film focuses on Joy (Amy Poehler) as its central character rather than on its human protagonist, Riley. Indeed, Jonas Rivera, the film's producer, says about Riley, "She's not the main character, she's the setting."6 Interestingly, those allegories of human emotions in medieval times (which included passion and chivalry, among others) might be considered an early literary instance of multiple subjectivities. As A. O. Scott notes in the New York Times, "There is an old literary tradition of turning what used to be called the Passions into characters, and Inside Out updates this tradition with brilliant casting."7 All the five anthropomorphized emotions guide Riley in vastly different directions when they take charge of the neurological command center inside Riley's brain. Riley's growing unhappiness...

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