Inside Out: How Toxic Positivity is Damaging

Throughout our childhood, we’re taught to always smile and put our best foot forward. And this is good in times of adversity, but it’s unrealistic to expect everyone, especially children, to be happy all the time. This would mean suppressing our other emotions and only focusing on the positive, which can lead to toxic positivity. I’m glad that movies like Inside Out are bringing awareness to the issue of toxic positivity and educating the younger generation on important mental health topics. It does a great job at portraying how personality is shaped and how we are impacted by our emotions. 

The movie starts out with Joy appearing as the first emotion. Soon, the rest of the emotions - Sadness, Anger, Disgust, and Fear - come along, representing a simplified view of the range of emotions we feel on a day-to-day basis. Joy, being the only positive emotion, dictates most of Riley’s behaviors and memories throughout the movie. She strives to only make happy memories while pushing out the other emotions. This is a good example of what toxic positivity looks like. When her mom encourages her to stay positive and to keep smiling, Riley tries, but ends up bottling up her emotions. She later isn’t able to handle these emotions because she has only tried to focus on the positive. The meaning behind this message is that we shouldn’t focus only on the positive because then we wouldn’t know how to deal with anything negative. 

Another pivotal scene that spoke volumes was when Bing Bong realized he couldn’t be with Riley and fly her to the moon. As he’s crying, Joy tries to cheer him up by making funny faces and suggesting games to play. When that doesn’t work, Sadness talks to him and ends up cheering him up by letting him open up about how he’s feeling. This symbolizes the importance of talking through your thoughts and feelings rather than trying to bury them with false positivity. It’s important to accept the emotions you’re feeling whether they be positive or negative. 

As the movie ends, Riley and Joy start to realize the importance of Sadness and the other emotions. Sadness is what causes Riley to get off the bus at the last minute after running away to go back home to her family. It’s what makes us miss our family when we don’t see them and helps bring us together. We know that it can because people often bond over tragedy and hardship. We grow after these experiences and are able to appreciate the sun after the storm. The main message of balance and harmony in the movie is expressed beautifully in the imagery and animation. At the end, we see Riley having a more complex personality because she is able to finally embrace her emotions to have more genuine interactions. This is true for everyone because if we only express one type of emotion, we are cutting ourselves off from a wide array of experiences and opportunities. Next time you feel sad or angry, rather than trying to dismiss these feelings, try embracing them and asking yourself why you feel this way. 

You can read more about this topic from our previous post. ​