Free Essay

Inside Out

In: Film and Music

Submitted By krljyx
Words 604
Pages 3
The movie Inside Out showed the inner workings of a girl’s (Riley’s) mind. The writer/s packaged the movie in such a way that it would show the audience how and why a person acts in a certain manner in such an entertaining way. It used whimsical representations showing how the brain receives, processes, and lets out responses, how memories fade, and how humans develop our personalities. Expressing Riley’s consciousness are five characters, which determine her actions and thoughts: Joy, Sadness, Anger, Disgust, and Fear. These five characters are embodiments of five emotions voicing the complex workings of the human brain.

It was, for me, one of the best movies Disney Pixel has ever created. There have been, however, reactions from neuroscientists regarding the metaphors or representations used in the movie. The movie according to them, though cute and entertaining, was not a neurology lesson and some important elements of the functions of the human brain were misplaced, if not missing. Hence, I am going to try and discuss the comments of some neuroscientists regarding the representations used in the movie.

First is the control panel being the center of commands. There does not seem to be a control panel similar to that of the movie in the actual human brain. The consciousness, however, does not reside on a single command center but rather distributed, with each part of the brain contributing its little bit. The nearest thing the human brain has to a command center is the frontal lobe, which allows humans to strategically plan actions and goals, and act in our own long-term interests. The emotions do not reside here. They reside somewhere deeper in the limbic system. The writer/s could have, according to a neurologist, created a multiple distributed control panel, since the functioning of the brain does not only depend on a single command system.

Next is how the movie showed the process of Riley developing her personality. It seemed to show John Locke’s idea of a “blank slate” where humans are born essentially empty and personalities are solely crafted from experiences over time. It has been generally recognized by neuroscience that personality is strongly genetic and deeply coded in the brain. Apparently, there are no exact figures as to whether “nature” or “nurture”, since human brain functions are complex combination of inherent and learnt factors. Human brain is an organ that evolved specifically to interact and adapt to the environment. The brain also displays plasticity, meaning that it can gradually change its wiring over time based upon use and experiences.

Memories in the movie were subject to certain emotions. Memories were also consolidated down to long-term storage during sleep; they also fade and eventually dumped to what looked like a pit of balls. The thing used to represent memories in the movie was solid ball, as if memories were a discrete thing. In reality, however, memories are not discrete and solid; they are more of bubbles than a solid ball since memories are far more transient and changeable. The bubbles links up to other bubbles, fuses, morph, and also are changed by the act of trying to access them. The memories should not have been hard solid objects, but living changing interconnected things memories are highly networked and interconnected. They are also very malleable. In the movie a specific memory could be played back with absolute fidelity.

The movie, all in all, was terrific. It shows not only how a child develops but also how these developments come about. The movie is not also only appealing to young audiences but to older ones as well.

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