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As
an only child that went to an all boys school and who has since become
almost terminally single, I grew up in complete fear of all woman-kind.
I mean.. what were they?! They liked dolls, the colour pink, and would one
day grow two massive arse cheeks on their chest for babies to suck on. I
was predominately exposed to females through the goggle-box which
terrified me with images of Bonnie Tyler screaming down the camera like the
Welsh God of Drunken Anger. Even movies rarely focused on the vagina'd
gender unless they were spoon-feeding us a turgid love story about a
frumpy tart's desperate attempt to win the heart of some terribly
English prick. Talk about boring! As a young boy I didn't care about
'romance' and so found those movies and characters to be about as
interesting and relatable as a tiny stain on the rim of a cat's anus. In
the years that I've since spent growing up I'd like to think that I've
gained some insight, but sadly it seems that most mainstream movies
haven't. If you want to see a film starring a woman in the lead role of a movie which doesn't fall into the romance genre, then the odds are she's going
to be on her knees as twenty men tug one out around her. Thank God then
for Pixar and their new film Inside Out which aims to have a look at a young girls brain and answer the age old question of 'what the fuck is going on in there!?'
The
film follows Riley, an eleven year old kid who's on the cusp of
puberty. She likes hockey, her family, friends, and acting like a tit.
Inside her head however we see the personification of her emotions in a
command centre, controlling her every action according to whatever emotion they embody.
Joy is essentially the main character but she's also joined by Sadness,
Fear, Anger, and Disgust, with the five of them working as a team to
ensure that young Riley remains mentally stable. Sadly, Joy and Sadness
get lost in her head causing the poor girl to get her first taste of
the unending misery of adulthood. I'm pretty sure that the characters
in my own mind have Joy's head on a fucking stick these days. So the bulk
of the movie involves Joy and Sadness racing to get back to Riley's
control centre before she gets too depressed and the film turns into an
unofficial sequel to The Virgin Suicides. Oh,
and in their adventure through Riley's mind, they also meet her childhood
imaginary friend Bing Bong who essentially acts as their guide. Bing
Bong is the creepiest fucking thing I've seen this side of Jake Busey
and will presumably turn Riley into a full blown schizophrenic if he
manages to get to the control centre. I myself have never had an
imaginary friend but I do find myself feeling better about life after a
night in with a twenty bag and an item that I refer to as my own Bing
Bong.
Having spent the last couple of years pissing about with underwhelming films like Cars 2, it's nice to see that Pixar have decided to pull their finger out and go back to making instant classics again. Inside Out has
everything you want from a family film with it not only being a fun
adventure but one that actually has something to say. It's essentially
the set-up of Toy Story in
that two mismatched characters get lost and have to find their way home
to help comfort a child- but with the added message that one day you
will get depressed about how shit your life is! It also attempts to
justify the reason for Sadness's existence which provides a
genuinely touching moment between that character and Bing Bong.
Essentially, the imaginary chum is feeling down and Sadness knows how to
deal with him in a way that doesn't involve knifing the creepy fucker in
the back and legging it as fast as possible. Personally I'd argue that
Joy and Sadness aren't quite as iconic or as good company as Woody or
Buzz, but that's just me. I grew up with the latter two and I personally
can't cope with people like Joy who are too cheerful all of the time.
If the builders who I overheard giggling about the excitement they were
having on a rotating stool the other day are anything to go by, I can't
help but assume that being permanently happy is just a sign that you're a
bit of a fucking idiot.
From
what I've read, it seems that the makers of this film thoroughly
researched the mechanisms of the brain so that they could recreate its
actual workings as accurately as possible. Considering I was only a few
marks above an 'unclassified' in my psychology AS-Level Exam, I'll take
their word for it on that one. What I can say however is that the film
looks fucking amazing, with the team seizing the opportunity to go nuts
on the eye slice-ingly
sharp visuals. As Joy and Sadness wander into the imagination part of
Riley's brain, it's as though they've accidentally stepped into the
Quantum Zone after an expensive trip to Amsterdam. This obviously works
really well when contrasting the multi-colours of Riley's head with that
of the much grimmer and drably coloured reality. There's nothing more
effective than a colour scheme to subconsciously help kids understand
that the oppressive blandness of the real world will one day be the
blanket used to smother their own dreams and sense of fun. This
creativity of design obviously extends to the characters themselves, with
Joy, Sadness, Disgust, Fear, and Anger being subtly shaped like a star,
tear, broccoli, nerve and fire block. Although if the emotions' physical
appearance resemble things the girl associates with those feelings then I
can only assume that as puberty begins and her agendas change, they're
all going to start to become significantly more dick shaped.
For me, there are two things that set Inside Out apart
as being something special, with the first being the insanity of its
seemingly impossible balancing act. The adventures of Joy and Sadness
have to be as interesting as Riley's in the real world, with the two
stories having to parallel each other in a way that kids and their
innate stupidity can follow. Imagine making a film like Inception
for children, that's relatable to their own lives, and yet isn't dumbed
down in the slightest and that's what this is. The other thing that it
really does help to do is to de-mystify the cock-less gender for any
confused and scared little boys whose only exposure to the female form
is in 80's singers and their lyrically confusing power ballads. It also
gives young girls a character that they can relate to without needing to
strain their noggins by empathising with somebody who can pee whilst
standing up.
Obviously
this isn't the first family film to feature a female as the lead, but
it's the first that I can think of where it's not integral to the story.
Brave, Mulan, and Frozen might
feature women doing more than hunting for a man to stuff up themselves
but they still highlight the differences that our two genders have to go
through. What Inside Out dares
to suggest is that deep down in our skull-mush, we're all just one and
the same. We all feel the same emotions, go through the same traumas,
and deal with shit in a similar way. Nor is Riley made to be particularly stereotypically feminine
as is so often the case... She doesn't wear long flowing dresses and
her biggest hobby is a sport in which men usually kick the shit out of
each other. It's as though the film doesn't see her as just her
gender, but as a human instead. Strange! The great thing too is that I
know kids are actually relating to her because there was a young boy
expressing his love of the film while I was in the cinema. He didn't mind
that she was a girl and that both Joy and Sadness also seemed to be
female. He was just enjoying the film by screaming and kicking my chair
whilst his stupid bitch of a Mum did nothing to shut the little shit up.
Seeing kids films really is ruined by the fact that kids will be there,
with the little bastards lacking any sense of self-awareness or respect
for others. Parents will moan about their own children's constant stream
of energy by saying “the thing about kids is that it's a full time
job. They just don't come with an off switch”. But they're kids, of
course they come with an off-switch. It's called the soft part of their
fucking skull and it just pops right in! Anyway, thanks for reading
motherfuckers, and see you next time.
You can visit the blog picture artist at _Moriendus_
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