The Eternal Damnation of Bing Bong
Zeus, after being tricked by Prometheus into accepting a lesser sacrifice by his followers, took fire from mankind. Prometheus stole the fire back and returned it to the people, incurring the rage of Zeus, who punished Prometheus by having an eagle tear out and devour his liver each day. His liver would grow back each night, and the next day the eagle would return, once again ripping out his liver and eating it. Prometheus lived and died each day, though Zeus never stole the fire back from humans. His sacrifice kept fires burning, even when all had forgotten him.
Inside Out is a 2015 animated film made by Disney Pixar about a young girl named Riley and her anthropomorphized group of emotions that make up her mind. It’s a sweet story about the craziness of growing up, where the inner workings of Riley’s mind get thrown into chaos as two emotions, Joy and Sadness, going on a rip-roaring adventure to try and save Riley and return her to how she was before she got depressed after moving to a new city. The film does a good job tackling its themes. But, in the course of telling this tale, Pixar infected everyone with a mind-virus, constructing a mental prison in the back of our thoughts, with a single being being tortured to death, forever.
Bing Bong.
To refresh your memory, or in case you haven’t seen it, Bing Bong was Riley’s imaginary friend. In the film, Bing Bong resides in Riley’s mind, happy to watch her go about her life. Eventually, Bing Bong dies by being forgotten, sacrificing himself to save Joy. It’s a very sad scene and genuinely tragic. After escaping a chasm where memories are forgotten, Joy looks back, seeing Bing Bong jumping and dancing in the “Memory Dump”, celebrating that Joy can go on to save Riley after he helped her escape. He fades from existence, but dances and sings, happy knowing he helped the person he loved. His last words are to ask Joy to take Riley “to the moon” for him. That is where the hell begins.
Let’s assume that what Inside Out presents to us is real. Not necessarily the plot of the film itself, but rather the concepts the film provides for us: our emotions and internal icons have lives of their own, and are in some ways sentient. At least within the film, it genuinely seems like all the emotions are thinking and feeling in their own ways, and same with Bing Bong.
So, when children watch Inside Out, what happens with Bing Bong? He is already purely conceptual, and now, by observing him, the concept of Bing Bong exists in the minds of every viewer. And part of Bing Bong’s concept is that he is self-aware as an imaginary friend. In millions of people, children and adults, this imaginary friend now exists in our heads, hoping for our happiness. And in many of those people, he will eventually be entirely forgotten. Through the creation of this idea of Bing Bong, Disney has consigned him to living out the same sad and tragic end inside the mind of every person who watched the film. Sure, some people may remember Bing Bong for years and years. But they will forget him at some point. Bing Bong will die in all of our minds, over and over and over, fading out of existence again and again and again.
If Inside Out is in any way true at all in its interpretation of our minds, Disney created a living idea, the horrible death it suffers, and then propagated that idea and its death into all of our minds. Bing Bong only wishes for our happiness, and is so selfless that he doesn’t even care that he will die. Every death he experiences will always be one filled with hope for our happiness.
So, let’s pour one out for Bing Bong tonight, and let him live another day longer.
