Page 27 - HERE AND NOW Dec 2022

In the absence of Joy and Sadness, the other emotions struggle to keep Riley functional but fails. Joy is the
most dominant emotion but in her absence, Fear, Anger, and Disgust inadvertently increase Riley's stress
and encourage her to plan to run away to her old home, as if that would be the answer to her problems.
They plant the idea of stealing her mother's credit card to return to her happy self. The growing dominance
of these emotions and recklessness shows Riley's conversion from childhood to adolescence because
adolescence is a time of confused, strong emotions in which joy is not always the dominant one.

Possibly the stereotype of the moody teen is where this comes from. It is no surprise therefore, that trying
to force herself to be happy actually doesn’t help Riley deal with the stresses and transitions in her life. In
fact, not only does that strategy fail to bring her happiness, but it also seems to make her feel isolated
and angry with her parents, which is factored into her eventual decision to run away from home.

In the final scenes of the film, Riley allows herself to feel sadness in addition to fear and anger, at her idea
of running away from home. She then decides not to go through with her plan. This choice reunites Riley
with her family, giving her a deeper sense of happiness and contentment in the comfort she gets from her
parents, even though it is mixed with sadness and fear.

I realized, after watching the movie, that prioritizing positivity does not mean avoiding or denying negative
feelings or the situations that cause them. This kind of single-minded pursuit of happiness can be
counterproductive. That is the crucial emotional lesson for Riley and her family when Riley finally admits
that moving to San Francisco has been tough on her—an admission that brings her closer to her parents.

Sadness, both the character and the concept, are important - for Riley to adjust to the reality of moving
away from her friends, home, and hockey league. Joy finally sees the importance of Sadness despite her
apparent undesirability only when Riley cries and confesses to her feelings and is able to adapt to her new
situation. Accepting Sadness helps Riley grow up.

As I reflected upon the scene, I realized the validity of what I learnt in the many ISABS Labs I attended -
that the emotion of sadness enables people to connect to other people and face realities; and
ignoring/hiding sadness only makes matters worse.
In the movie, at first, Joy sees emotions as simple and does not understand that a person can feel two
emotions simultaneously. In a pivotal scene, Joy looks back on one of Riley’s “core memories”—when the
girl misses a shot in an important hockey game—and realizes that the sadness Riley feels afterwards elicits
compassion from her parents and friends, making her feel closer to them and transforming this potentially
awful memory into one imbued with deep meaning and significance for her. She has an Aha! moment
when she notices that she has the ability to feel both sadness and happiness at the same time and thus,
memories are not cut and dry, ‘this or that’. Joy comes to accept that emotions are complex and no
memory evokes just one emotion. This affects the way in which Riley views relationships and memories.

Development of personality is another psychological aspect in the movie. It shows that Riley's mind
contains five "islands": Goofball Island, Hockey, Friendship, Honesty, and Family. Each island is highly
passion-driven as she cares deeply about them. For Riley, she personally enjoys the experiences of ice
hockey, spending time with friends, and goofing around with her parents and she needs to deliberately
carve out ample time for those experiences. The islands begin to deteriorate as Riley has unkind

27