Science as Fantasy: Humour and Human Psychology in Pixar’s Inside Out (2015)

Like parody and nonsense, fantasy questions the basis of a known reality. Fantasy is a “flirtation with limits of sense-making” and – with a friendly wink to Alice in Wonderland – “the mirror that sucks the body in” (Shires 1988, 267-268). The effect produced by fantasy has also been described as a “wildly abandoning experience of viewing oneself in a distorting mirror at the circus funhouse for the first time” or, in other words, as ecstasis in sense of the Greek meaning of the term: as “standing outside oneself” (Shires 1988, 268).

Fig. 1 - The Emotions standing at the control table at “Headquarters.”

Disney Pixar’s 2015 computer-animated family film Inside Out (Pete Docter, 2015) is a comedy-adventure that explores emotions ‘standing outside themselves’. It follows the anthropomorphised characters Joy, Sadness, Anger, Fear and Disgust who – at a place called “Headquarters” – control the emotional reactions of 11-year old Riley (Fig. 1). Headquarters is at the epicentre of a fictional utopia in which memories are stored and developed into personality traits. Joy and Sadness become lost in this utopia and must find their way back to Headquarters or risk Riley losing parts of her personality. Inside Out uses humour to convey its science, specifically psychology, through the exploration of mental processes and emotionally-driven behaviour (Burton et al. 2019). Not surprisingly, psychologists and neuroscientists were consulted in the development of the film (Ekman/Keltner 2015). Against this background, we query: what humour strategies are used to create a fantasy of science-based emotions in Inside Out and to what effect?

Humour is not only a powerful tool in communication but also a versatile frame for interpreting our relationship with science (see Carroll-Monteil 2022; Boykoff and Osnes 2019; Pinto et al. 2015). Humorous pop cultural products exploring scientific themes provide enjoyment and other affective responses and experiences (such as amusement) in relation to the science at stake, and can thus form, reform or confirm science-related opinions (Burns et al. 2003). Clarifying the functions and different forms of humour in science-related animated films opens up new perspectives for our understanding of humour in science narratives and the public imagination, if not the cultural power of science. Examined through a Science Communication and Humour Studies perspective, we thus argue that Inside Out communicates human psychology through anthropomorphic personification, hyperbolic and situational humour. It plays on incongruity and the intrinsic link between fantasy and humour expressions (Shires 1988) to create exaggerated, multifaceted characters that not only point to animation’s ability to represent the unrepresentable (see Thain 2016, 5), but also lead to the representation of science as a relatable and easily digestible fantasy.

Portraying emotional reactions and intelligence through humour

Humour is used in Pixar’s film to communicate emotional intelligence, which is defined as an awareness of emotions in oneself and others which helps us make considered choices (Purushothaman, 2021). For example, in the absence of Joy and Sadness at Headquarters, Fear, Anger and Disgust cause Riley to have outbursts of rage and ruminate anxiously on her actions. The fantastical interpretation of Anger’s hair bursting into flames as it causes Riley's outbursts is meant to amuse the viewer through sheer exaggeration, a type of humour often used in audiovisual media aimed at family and young audiences. Enjoyment and amusement correlated with animated characters and their adventures “may evoke positive feelings and attitudes that may lead to subsequent, deeper encounters” (Burns et al. 2003, 197). In this case, emotional intelligence and, to a certain extent, psychological concepts are the ‘deep encounters’. Finessed “by charm and humour” (Whitley 2008, 2), enjoyment creates an immersive “melding of attention, imagery and feelings” (Davies et al. 2019, 8) in the film. Therefore, feelings evoked in Inside Out can foster identification and empathy, which can influence audiences’ perceptions of their own worlds (Mathies 2020).

Fig. 2 - The character, Bing Bong, shows the warning sign above the entrance to “Abstract Thought.”

Conceptual incongruity, the surprise or distortion of familiar concepts and situations, or scale in general, is another form of humour in “Inside Out” and is cleverly used to explore psychological concepts. Within the utopia of Riley's personality, there is a door to enter “Abstract Concepts” along with the warning sign “DANGER” (Fig. 2). As Eunha Son (2021) writes, children at Riley’s age do not understand abstract concepts. Hence, in a family film setting, children would not understand the humour behind the dangers of abstract concepts whereas adults would. As such, humour is used as a conduit for science to influence or inform multiple demographics. On the other hand, as Joy is willing to enter the room, but Sadness is not, the lesson to children is that sometimes, when we are filled with joy, we cannot rationally make safe decisions. Mayer et al. (2004) refer to this concept of utilising emotions to inform thought as emotional intelligence. Conceptual incongruity and exaggeration are humour forms that can evoke positive emotions including joy (in the producer and the receiver). Joy feeds hope, and hope is essential for sustainable action (Osnes et al. 2019) – beyond the fictional world of animated films.

Intangible elements of the brain such as abstract thought, the subconscious and personality are visually represented in “Inside Out” and require a buy-in by the viewer to accept this utopia. The film does this through situational humour. For example, the mind workers (characters who decide which memory Riley keeps and forgets) play a memory of a dental gum advertisement accompanied by an earworm. This plot device reminds the audience of the universal experience of having a song stuck in their head and being unable to erase it from our memory. Connecting this lived experience to the fictional world created in the films allows the viewer to intimately connect and become immersed in the film, and subsequently the scientific concepts it is trying to explain.

Humour and Science as fantasy

Pop culture, including animated films, is where collective science understandings are created. Narrative entertainment media can, promote the acquisition of knowledge about science as they dramatise, emotionalise, personalise, and fictionalise knowledge ultimately increasing interest and engagement in the world and what holds it together (Dahlstrom 2014). Özdemįr (2016) suggests that the powerful mixture of science and humour may increase children’s interest in, emotional connection with and enjoyment of science outside of the classroom.

Much of the enjoyment in “Inside Out” emerges from the contrast between concepts of different size or scale – also referred to as the “incongruities of size” in humour research (Price 2013, 42) – provoking humorous effects when addressing different audiences at the same time (young audience and adults) and embodied in anthropomorphised emotions. Science is fantasy, in this film, because it appears as an expression of comically framed creative character invention, which question the basis of our known emotional reality. The humour of the film’s fantasy psychology also arises from the visual and behavioural familiarity of the subjective abilities and non-verbal idiosyncrasies of the animated emotions, which do not strictly correspond to human behaviour. In general, animated anthropomorphs “permit the aesthetic exploration, dilution, exaggeration and satirizing of the machinations of the human condition” (Holliday, 2018, 87), and this also included the condition of science in “Inside Out”.

The use of hyperbolic humour and incongruities in “Inside Out” is an exemplar of how animation can be used to convey science knowledge in an easily identifiable way. Tapping into the fact that humour as a ‘pedagogical tool’ has the ability to foster positive social perceptions of and accessibility to, sometimes, complex topics and boost attention to its communication . The use of anthropomorphic personification to create emotion-based characters allowed the filmmakers to engage in issues such as emotional maturity and the connection between our emotions and behaviours. A vessel for this connection is the use of situational humour to create a bond between the viewer and their own experiences which they can identify in Pixar’s film. Ultimately, the ability of Inside Out to portray science through humour shows us the fantastic possibilities and extended versions of what science can be in our collective imagination.

**Article published: April 7, 2023**

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Biographies

Vinhara Goonesekera is a Communications and Change Management Consultant, currently working on projects with the Australian Department of Defence. She recently graduated with a Bachelor of International Security Studies with a minor in Global Security at the Australian National University. During her degree she focused studies on barriers to building national resilience and the impact of the history of the intelligence community. She intends to continue studies combining lessons from security studies and its intersections with science communications. Though seemingly very different areas of study, she is quickly finding intersections between the depiction of military in popular culture and its implications on our perceptions of the world.

Dr Anna-Sophie Jürgens is an Assistant Professor in Popular Entertainment Studies at the Australian National Centre for the Public Awareness of Science of the Australian National University. Her research explores the cultural meanings of science, and science and comic performance in different media. Anna-Sophie has published on comic parasites and Joker viruses in (animated) fiction, environmental fragility in street art, and clowns and scientists in comics and popular theatre in numerous academic journals. Her recent books include Circus and the Avant-Gardes (co-editor, Routledge 2022) and Circus, Science and Technology: Dramatising Innovation (editor, Palgrave Macmillan 2020). Anna-Sophie is the editor-in-chief of the peer-reviewed open access online journal w/k – Between Science and Art (English section) and Associate Editor of the Journal of Science & Popular Culture.