Inside Out and what it means to be a Pixar man

August 05, 2024

Now that I’ve finished the weeping inspired by Pixar’s “Inside Out,” which premiered two weeks ago, I’m capable of thinking clearly about it. And while I still feel all the delight of watching baby Riley (Kaitlyn Dias) giggle for the first time and the sadness of another character’s self-sacrifice, I’m also considering where the movie fits into the Pixar tradition.

Pixar’s always had terrific male and female characters in its ensembles, though its main characters have generally been men. “Inside Out” follows the 2012 movie “Brave” in introducing more female protagonists. Unfortunately, it lacks some of the ensemble strength of previous Pixar pictures; the riot inside Riley’s head means her parents, and their brains, come across as a tad simplistic, even stereotypical.

One of the most compelling parts of spending time in Riley’s brain was the idea that her emotions were both male and female, and that they had different ways of being male and female. Joy (Amy Poehler) is peppy, feminine and active; Sadness (Phyllis Smith) buries into her turtleneck; and Disgust (Mindy Kaling) is hyperfeminine and finicky. On the male side, Fear (Bill Hader) has a dandyish little bow tie and a tendency to swoon, while Anger (Louis Black) has the Dilbert-ish air of a man who’s just escaped his office-drone job for the day and is loosening his polyester tie in the parking lot. The result was a girl who both imagines a standard-issue boyfriend with swooping bangs who lives in Canada and fully comes into her body in the aggression of an ice hockey match, without contradiction.

Riley’s parents’ brains are less wild places. Her mother’s emotions are all female, and all wear the same red plastic glasses; her father’s are all male, and sport the same brisk moustache. And when we get inside the head of a boy’s Riley’s age, his all-male emotions have system-wide freakout when confronted with Riley; he’s frozen up at the simple prospect that a girl actually wants to talk to him.

Pixar feels like a cultural oasis for a lot of reasons, but among them is the fact that the studio allows male characters a much greater emotional range than might be available to storytellers elsewhere. In “Monsters, Inc.” the creatures who work in a nightmare factory (John Goodman and Billy Crystal) are genuinely and sweetly terrified that children might contaminate and kill them. “The Incredibles” shows surprising sympathy for Mr. Incredible’s (Craig T. Nelson) disastrous mid-life crisis.

Grief is a common factor: Marlin (Albert Brooks), the clownfish in “Finding Nemo” has become crabbed and anxious since his wife was killed by a barracuda, while “Up” protagonist Carl Fredricksen (Ed Asner) has withdrawn from the world that he loved to explore with his wife Ellie (Elizabeth Docter). And Pixar boys often have adventuresome streaks that have been constrained; Nemo wants to see more of the ocean, while Dash Parr (Spencer Fox), the super-fast son of two superheroes in “The Incredibles” is quarrelsome and mischievous in part because he’s not allowed to get the kind of exercise that would actually leave him tired out at the end of the day. And Pixar men (or male robots) are open to wonder, too. Anton Ego (Peter O’Toole), the acerbic restaurant critic in “Ratatouille” has his faith in the power of food to surprise restored by a dish cooked by a rat. And the way we understand that WALL-E (Ben Burtt), the trash compactor from the movie that shares his name, has developed sentience, is his sentimentality and curiosity about the society he’s helping to dismantle.

And so as much as I was moved by “Inside Out,” I was disappointed by these tiny regressions in the studio’s depiction of men, suggesting that their brains are simple and reactionary.

I’d love to see Pixar continue to develop female main characters: “Inside Out” builds well on the foundation of the mother-daughter (Emma Thompson and Kelly Macdonald) conflict in “Brave,” of the post-traumatic stress disorder of Jessie (Joan Cusack) in “Toy Story 2” and “Toy Story 3,” the loopiness of Dory (Ellen DeGeneres) in “Finding Nemo,” and the sexy competence of Elastigirl (Holly Hunter) in “The Incredibles.” “Finding Dory,” due out next year, and perhaps some of the other sequels on Pixar’s slate will give these great female characters more room to grow, and play, and love, and grieve.

But along the way, I’d love to see Pixar’s exploration of manhood go inside a boy’s mind and find the unique mix of masculinity and femininity, brashness and tenderness, and joy and fear that resides there. We know from the “Toy Story” characters what a boy like Andy (John Morris) means to others. It would be fascinating to learn what a Pixar boy means to himself.

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