Inside Out: The movie for kids...that every adult needs to see

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Animation studios figured out a long time ago that in order to make a hit, their movies needed to be equally entertaining to parents and children alike. Above and beyond the bright colors, slapstick comedy, and silly catchphrases, there needs to be a serious storyline that packs an emotional punch, with some clever one-liners thrown in for good measure.

In the case of the new movie Inside Out, it’s possible that Disney-Pixar tipped the balance too far. I honestly don’t know if this will be another Toy Story that kids ask to see again and again. In fact, parts felt more like a college psychology course than an animated kids’ film. But it does what few animated films can claim to do: it really makes kids think, and on that score, it earns an "A". With a plot that manages to break the mold of “believe in yourself” storylines, Inside Out tells a compelling tale that reflects life’s real complexity.

Riley is the movie’s 11-year-old protagonist, whose family moves from Minnesota to San Francisco. Despite a store of mostly joyful “core memories” from her childhood, her world – inner as well as outer – is turned upside down by the change. The film illustrates how that inner struggle to make life make sense again actually looks like.

No film I’ve ever seen has ever accomplished this. There have been plenty of films about preteens challenged to adapt to life changes, but they can only show us what everyone else sees – outward expressions of emotion. And perhaps they give us ringside seats for some intimate conversations in which the child experiences a breakthrough, often with the help of a Mike Brady-like parental figure whose sound bite wisdom saves the day.

In movies like that – and in life – the best thing we can do is play amateur psychologist, judging what body language and facial expression and tears mean. The inner processes that produce the outward behaviors are hidden to us. Inside Out jumps back and forth between the world of the characters and the emotional “head quarters” of their brains. Only animation could accomplish this. You get to see the fast-paced interplay between Joy, Anger, Sadness, Disgust, and Fear, all vying to impose their filter of reality on the situation at hand, and hard-wire that understanding into a memory.

How accurate is all of this? I confess that this is the film’s main difficulty: how to communicate a technical subject in sufficient detail (it is brain science, after all) without becoming boring or preachy or making your own head hurt.  But this isn’t just a 90-minute Schoolhouse Rock primer on your emotions; there’s a real story here, too, about growing up and family communication and accepting things you can’t control. And we, the audience, are the real winners, because over and above the lessons learned by the characters, we know infinitely more, because we know the characters “from the inside-out”.

So you get to benefit from all that Riley’s parents don’t see. In the end –

*** SPOILER ALERT ***

though they are all feeling regret about their move, they do not “make it all better” by going back to Minnesota. Riley misses her friends in the movie, and at movie’s end, she’s still missing them. The furniture still hasn’t come. Dad is still working long hours trying to get his new company off the ground. We have no assurance that things will be roses going forward. But we do know this:

*** SPOILER OVER ***

Riley grows. Through her sadness, she eventually experiences Joy. (And kudos to the producers for not calling that emotion “Happiness”). Riley becomes more fully alive. As sad as it is to see a happy little girl go through that, is there any truer way to tell the story?

To me, that’s the takeaway from this film: when joy manifests itself (kids are smiling, happy, playing contentedly), it doesn’t mean that sadness, fear, disgust, and anger are absent, or don’t have the potential to step on stage. And those not-joy emotions aren’t “bad” or even inappropriate. They are human.

Sometimes we oversimplify emotions by just telling people to “put on a happy face”. Or we think if we’re healthy, we won’t ever get angry. To be sure, anger is upsetting, and often a sign that something needs to be changed, but upset is a part of life. When we impose this on kids, either because we want them not to pout, or not to fight with one another, or not to complain or cry, we are pressing them into a mold that isn’t real. In fact, in Inside Out, we find that Sadness is necessary for Riley to experience Joy.

Our world worships happiness, so much so that when someone isn’t happy, it’s naturally assumed that they should take the quickest possible route back to happiness. But is that really what we want to teach our kids – make yourself happy, no matter the price? Think about where that could drive kids. The happiness rat race is no place to live. Either you’re constantly anxious that you don’t have happiness, or you’re constantly anxious that you’ll lose what you have.

Much better to help kids live to be who they are – which is a fully-orbed human who experiences the full range of emotions. Inside Out contains the powerful message that we are each more than meets the eye, and that even the “bad” emotions are not abnormal or something to be suppressed or wished away. It’s a much more realistic picture of life as a journey of growth, rather than the endless pursuit of thrill.

Can Good Kids Believe the Gospel?

Throughout the spring, I've been looking at the question, "What is the gospel?" It is not a you-can-do-it pep talk or the power of positive thinking. It's not character education, and it's not behavioral engineering. Instead, the gospel is a statement about spiritual realities: God is reconciling the whole world to himself through the forgiveness of sins, which was accomplished by the death and resurrection of his Son, Jesus Christ.

All of that requires belief: belief in spiritual things, like God and heaven and sin, but also the belief that appropriates God's saving power. As I noted in the first post of this series, the gospel is really quite "un-believeable". Which led me, as I prepared to teach Kindergarteners the story of Adam and Eve and the snake this weekend, to wonder whether it's something Good Kids can even believe?

To believe John 3:16 - that God so loved the world, he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life - is to believe not just something about God - that he is "mighty to save" - but about myself - that I actually need saving and that I cannot do this myself.

It's one thing to believe that God can save people - people who are bad, like Paul who killed Christians. It's another to believe he must save them...or they won't be saved. "God turned the life of that convicted criminal around" is something we can all celebrate. But "God turned me around" requires humility. I am admitting that I didn't have it all together and was receiving something I wasn't worthy of.

Can Good Kids believe this? We want kids to grow up Good, and they know it. Being branded "Bad" in elementary school is like the kiss of death. Everyone wants to be a Good Kid - at the very least, it keeps you out of the spotlight or the principal's office or the doghouse. At best, it props up your sense of worth - "You're a Good Boy!" - garners praise - "You were Good in the grocery store." - or brings rewards - "If you're Good, we'll go to the movie."

What does it mean, then, for kids to hear that humans are sinful? Does it even compute? Bonnie Miller McLemore, in her book Let the Children Come, traces the evolution of thought regarding children and their nature and capabilities. She identifies that in contrast to ancient times, when kids were believed to be hopelessly depraved, in modern times we have subscribed to a belief in the perfectibility of children. If we nurture them just right, they'll not only turn out ok, they'll be exemplary. (Think of Garrison Keillor's Lake Wobegon, where all of the children were "above average".) If we believe this about kids, and kids internalize that belief, how relevant is "sin" as a concept? Does it make sense to speak of misconduct or maladjustment as anything more than regrettable errors which could have been avoided?

The very fact of sin, and its strength and ubiquity, makes grace a necessity. It doesn't obligate God to act graciously toward us, but it does mean that if God is going to show us favor, there can't be any other way. None of the contemporary matras of childhood:

• "You can do it!"
• "Try again!"
• "You'll get it!"
• "Practice makes perfect!"
• "Deep down inside, if you want it bad enough and believe it, you can achieve it!"

fit the grace equation. So as much as we want kids to grow up Good, to do Good and to be Good, I wonder if those expectations conspire against kids' belief in the gospel of grace?

Or can we somehow separate the attainment of goodness from radical individualism? Of course God wants us to be Good, because he is Good. But it's his Goodness that he wants us to assume. It's a partnership. That's a far cry from a Goodness that's birthed from inside ourselves. Jesus told his disciples, "I am the vine, you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me, you can do nothing." (John 15:5)

Do you believe that? Do you teach it? Do kids believe it? More importantly, can they?

We Need to Ask a Better Question

[re-posted from www.whatdidyoulearntoday.net]

It's natural that after an hour away from your kid at church, you would ask, "What did you learn about today?" or "What did you do?" And if that question is working for you - drawing a meaningful response from your kid and launching a dialogue on the things of God - by all means, keep asking it.

But if "What did you learn today?" isn't working so well, I have a suggestion:

Stop asking, "What did you learn today?"

Bold, I know.

There's no harm in asking The Question, I suppose, except that it leads to discouragement for parents: Why aren't they getting anything out of this? Are they not listening, or misbehaving in class? What's going on in this program anyhow? Should we look for another church?

And it's not just parents who aren't well served by that question.

I wonder what it does to kids' confidence in their own abilities to articulate ideas and talk about meaningful, personal things like their own spiritual lives when they are repeatedly asked a lead-in question that's difficult to answer?

We already know that the older kids get, the less willing they become to talk about their inner lives and beliefs. That's because they fear being embarrassed or patronized by adults. We all want kids to share with us their thoughts and questions about God, but we're not going to get there unless we ask a better lead-in question.