Not really a movie mistake per se

[Racket_Man]

But a bit odd when you look at it a little closer

I went to see Pixar's Inside Out this weekend. Decent animated movie, the usual Pixar/Disney boilerplate scripting still enjoyable.

I will not give too much information but there will be some




***************************SPOILERS ****************************


The movie is about an 11 year old girl and what goes on behind the scenes in her "mind" as envisioned by the scriptwriter/ story author.

Now note that I said an 11 year old girl. this is slightly important

In the girls mind there are 5 "controlling" Emotions

Joy - voiced by a female actor
Sadness - again voiced by a female actor
Disgusted - again voice by a female actor

Fear - voiced by a male actor
Anger - voice by a male actor (notably Lewis Black)


This would not really have been a problem for me except for the following:

When other characters 5 controlling emotions are shown, the gender of the other character controllers are all the as the gender of the character.

For example when the girl's Mother's inner mind is show the controllers are all female and when the Father's controllers are shown they are all male not a mixture of both genders as is the main protagonist.

Not really bothering me to much BUT at the end of the movie a whole slew of people's inner mind emotional controllers are show reacting to different situations. The inner mind controllers are ALL the same gender as the person. EVEN a male dog's inner mind is shown and the controllers are male dogs.


YES I know this is a movie and with that comes movie "logic" and storytelling sometimes Damn the facts.

I just find this a little strange.

[AccountingDrone]

Hm, that is very odd. Perhaps to differentiate her from the other characters?

We were planning on going to see it this weekend but had an attack of snuggle-in-bed-itis all day both saturday and sunday...but it is definitely on our watch list next weekend.

[Bloodsoul]

Kind of a bad joke on my part but is there anyone in the movie named "Herman?"

[Jetfire]

Haven't seen it yet, but do we see the head-voices of other kids?

The reality is, they probably wanted specific voices for those roles for the actor name draw.

Putting on an analysis cap, maybe they're trying to imply that sexuality isn't clearly set at that young age, but as you age, it becomes a bigger factor and your inner voices will reflect it more.

[Andara Bledin]

Putting on an analysis cap, maybe they're trying to imply that sexuality isn't clearly set at that young age, but as you age, it becomes a bigger factor and your inner voices will reflect it more.

If I were going to bother analyzing it, this would be my impression.

It's worth noting that at the beginning, her memories all reflect single emotions and her emotion console is fairly small and simple. It's pretty obvious that things change as you age so it wouldn't be surprising that such things as that also change.

[Jetfire]

They could also be reflective of people she sees as espousing those feelings as well. So the early voices would probably be a combination of mom and dad (and maybe elder siblings) at first, and as she meets more people, they morph more, taking on elements of other people that impress on her until a person is fully mature and the voices are their own selves.

[Aragarthiel]

If the five emotions are essentially the main characters of the movie, they could have made them varying genders to avoid being called sexist. Make the main character female, and all five of her emotions, then only have men as supporting characters, and someone, somewhere's going to call it sexist.

[Greenday]

She could just be genderfluid. Or they are just trying to say a mix of her mom and her dad.

[Racket_Man]

I thought about the genderfluid/not set in stone thing.

BUT even when they show OTHER children's inner mind (meaning about the same age or maybe a bit younger) the 5 emotions were all the same gender as the child shown

[HYHYBT]

I haven't seen the movie, so this is even more guesswork than someone who has... but if the focus is on one person's inner life, it makes sense to me that that one would be worked out with more variety and detail than others. The simplification not only makes it easier on the makers' end, but quite possibly on the viewers' as well, provided they're not overthinking things.

Again, I haven't seen that, but I'm guessing it works a little bit like a trick in a movie I did see recently. The Cobbler is about a guy who takes on the appearance of anyone whose shoes he puts on, provided he's repaired them with a certain machine. Never noticed or mentioned by anyone in the movie is a distinctive red rope thing he always, always wears while in another body; in context, a foolish thing to do, but it makes him instantly identifiable to the audience.

[s_stabeler]

actually, there is a simple reason why they would simplify the minds of non-main characters. budget/time. Animation is both difficult and expensive- and takes a LONG time, since I'm almost certain they need to draw each frame. Therefore, what they probably did was design a single character for "female mind controller" and a single character for "male mind controller" and only bothered designing each different mind controller for the main character- it's to speed up animation, not for any other reason.

Also, it reduces the temptation to fully flesh out the other mind controllers- if they went to the point of uniquely designing each mind controller, they would be tempted to give other details- again lengthening the design process.

[Andara Bledin]

Well, it's computer animation, so they don't technically draw any frame, but the computer still has to work it out and it still has to be quality checked and edited.

I'm going to go with 'simplicity' as the most likely reason that everybody else's inner emotions are all different shapes and colors of the outside person while the focal character has a more varied group.

[Kheldarson]

She's a tomboy. So she has some male identifying traits. Mom is "mom" so has to be full female, same as dad. The other quick shots were tropes/stereotypes that wouldn't have mixed gendered interiors.

[Racket_Man]

I'm going to go with 'simplicity' as the most likely reason that everybody else's inner emotions are all different shapes and colors of the outside person while the focal character has a more varied group.

All of the other persons inner emotions (even the dogs) were just slight variations on the emotions of the main character. The parents/adults emotions were nearly the same except they were "more mature looking" (obviously because they were adults)

She's a tomboy. So she has some male identifying traits. Mom is "mom" so has to be full female, same as dad. The other quick shots were tropes/stereotypes that wouldn't have mixed gendered interiors.

OK I will concede that explanation.

Though even if Riley's Anger emotion was male I was almost expecting some sort of Katie Kaboom type of character for that emotion anyway

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vvh_JAQdbWQ

and that expectation was (from the trailer) nearly true.

[Mr Hero]

She plays hockey, a typically male-dominated sport. Maybe the male emotions reflect her tomboyishness.