Sadness is Important in Children’s Stories
Many of the characters that I love in children’s fiction are sad.
Disney’s Inside Out was one one of my all-time favorite movies even before the sequel was released to rave reviews earlier this year. I saw the original in 2015, when it was still in theaters. I went with my daughter Emily who was 11 at the time, the same age as the movie’s main character, Riley.
For those unfamiliar with the movie, the plot is fairly simple. The story follows Riley as her family relocates from her childhood home in Minnesota to San Francisco. We get to know Riley through the emotions in her head — Joy, Sadness, Disgust, Anger, and Fear. Riley’s emotions are personified. Voiced by hilarious actors like Amy Poehler and Bill Hader, they are the focal point of the story, particularly Joy and Sadness.
I love Amy Poehler, who plays Joy, and I doubly love Pixar films. That was my motivation for going to see the original movie. But what I ended up seeing was something entirely unexpected — a nuanced film with an emotionally fragile character that experienced real distress.
I wept, and not just because my older daughter Ana had experienced her own jarring transition when she’d turned 11. But instead of becoming uprooted from her home and friends, Ana was diagnosed with cancer.
