Problem Child

In this piece, Eli Cugini argues that Pixar’s heyday may have passed, with a once-adventurous studio now seemingly paralyzed by efforts to remain “family friendly.” Focusing on Elio and Inside Out 2, Cugini shows how Pixar tentatively introduces subversive ideas—children wanting escape, resisting rigid gender norms, or expressing complex desires—only to defuse them with reassuring endings that reassert the nuclear family, conformity, and safety.

Like its predecessor, Inside Out 2 is ostensibly about accepting change and uncertainty. Yet Inside Out 2 feels so straitjacketed that the real message seems to be more that surveillance and control are in a child’s best interest. When, in the ending sequence, Anger tells us that Riley sometimes may “do the wrong thing” and that this renders her no less lovable, the illustrative example shown is Riley accidentally breaking a pepper mill. A pepper mill! The it’s-okay-to-have-flaws mega-blockbuster cannot actually afford Riley more than a minimal license to make mistakes. Her climactic error is accidentally knocking over a friend, which the film takes pains to emphasize is accidental; this is a noticeable downgrade in autonomy compared to the still recent Turning Red and Luca, whose protagonists both deliberately betray their friends at points.