Day: July 29, 2022

So today we’re going to talk about how I cried for a solid 20 minutes because of Inside Out…

Umm, let’s restart that. We’re going to discuss emotions and how they are interpreted within Inside Out and Star Trek: The Next Generation‘s “Man of the People.”

Inside Out 

Inside Out has such interesting concepts when it comes to emotion, and also very important ones.

The emotions, mind, and body play as a team in this movie. Even though the emotions are viewed as separate characters and entities, they still work with Riley and her cognitive processes. They are a personified version of how humans think. We don’t have one track minds- different experiences give us different emotions, making us ponder how to react.

Riley has plenty of emotions her first night sleeping in her new home. She hears the noise and sees the shadow of a bus, and we see Fear start to flip out going, “What is that? Is it a bear? It’s a bear!” After some dialogue, Anger inputs his thoughts about the move. He says, “This move has been a bust.” Fear believes there’s 37 things for Riley to be scared of, Disgust mentions the icky stench in the house, and Anger exclaims, “I can’t believe mom and dad moved us here!” Joy tries to lighten things up, saying things like, “We’ve been through worse” and “Let’s make a list of all the things that Riley should be happy about.” This is much like how we in real life process emotions. If I were Riley, I’d have similar thoughts. I’d be scared of the unknown, disgusted by dead rats and the smell, and pissed at my parents for making me move. Possibly, I’d try to focus on the positives to feel better (I say possibly as someone who struggles with depression, if you know you know). Inside Out exhibits emotion similar to Arnold’s Appraisal Theory of Emotion. The emotions see something happen in Riley’s life, and usually say aloud if it’s good or bad. Their thoughts related to emotions are then exhibited in conversation, and from there they figure out the action they must take. After all, anger somehow came up with the “let’s jump on a bus to Minnesota to fix the occurring problems.”

On a more important note, Inside Out reveals that it is important to express our feelings in order to get the help we need. After Bing Bong’s rocket gets sent to the dump, he is overcome with sadness and says, “Riley can’t be done with me.” Joy says, “Hey! It’s gonna be okay, we can fix this. We just need to get back to headquarters. Which way to the train station?” Joy tries to pull him, but he says, “I had a whole trip planned for us” and stays put. Joy keeps trying to cheer him up to no avail. On the other hand, Sadness says, “I’m sorry they took your rocket. They took something that you loved. It’s gone, forever.” The two continue to talk about Bing Bong’s feelings, and he ends up crying and feeling better. Joy is like Riley in the beginning of the movie, pushing to hide feelings and avoid the problems to “stay positive.” On the other hand, sadness is like Riley at the end of the movie, pushing to express feelings in order to acknowledge and overcome them.

Star Trek: The Next Generation

I think it’s safe to say the episode “Man of the People” was weird.

I’d consider this episode an opposition to the Theory of Emotional Construction. This theory claims emotion as something that doesn’t happen to you, but rather something that is constructed. This episode shows emotion as something that happens to you.

We watch Deanna Troi deteriorate throughout the episode both mentally and physically after the “funeral meditation” with Alkar. Picard confronts Alkar after the autopsy of Alkar’s (not) mother to figure out what has been done to Troi. Alkar tells Picard, “You see, I discovered long ago I had the ability to channel my darker thoughts, my unwanted emotions to others, leaving me unencumbered.” He later says, “She’s an empath. I was reasonably certain I could establish a link with her. Frankly, I was amazed when I saw how quickly she’d aged. Usually my receptacles survive for years.”

Emotions are looked at as transferrable. It is also clear that it’s easier to transfer them onto empaths, which are people that can feel what others are feeling. Dr. Crusher called these transferred emotions on Troi “psychic waste.” It is as if emotion takes control of the person depending on how much dark emotion is transferred. Troi becomes a completely different person- more sexual, cruel, and attached. They happen to her; she doesn’t construct them. When the emotions transfer back to Alkar, he grows old and dies. He has no control of them.

This week we watched the movie Arrival and the episode “Darmok” From Star Trek: The Next Generation. From watching these two we can see the communication between people/species when you do not speak the same language. It is very easy to connect these two due to the fact that part of the main premise of them is the main characters trying to learn/understand the language of the other species that they are interacting with.

 

In the movie Arrival the main character, Louise, is trying to understand the language of the heptapods who have appeared around earth to understand why they are there. By seeing the heptapods and trying to learn their language from the writing they show her. She attempts to understand just based on viewing and her interpretation. It’s not until she develops a sort of telepathic connection to them, essentially rewiring her brain, she finally is not only able to understand them when they help her understand time but in turn it helps her learn their language. 

In the episode “Darmok” From Star Trek, we see the Enterprise trying to communicate with the Tamarians. Both the Tamarians and the Enterprise to not understand what the other is saying and so that all attempt to communicate until the Captain of the Tamarians transports himself and Captain Picard to the surface of El-Adrel, Picard and The captain of the Tamarians have to be patient in order to communicate and understand one another better and face the unknown enemy. The two ended up bonding and even though in the end the Tamarian captain was killed Picard understood the Tamarians language and was able to communicate with the Tamarian crew and let them know what happened and avoid conflict.

I once again apologize for my late post ! Still catching up a bit, but I’m eager to talk about empathy ! This topic was something I was really excited to discuss and will likely coincide with the main theme for my final project. I feel that empathy should be something that everyone has for others, though both of the pieces we watched for this class showed us otherwise.

I’m a big horror fan, so I was really excited to watch Posessor. However, it was easily one of the most disturbing things I have ever watched, and this is coming from someone who watches youtube horror series and true crime ! I immediately needed a palette cleanser after it, though I thought the story was artfully told in a pleasantly abstract way. While we’re able to understand Vos’ job and how has taken its toll on her, the way they portray her emotional disconnect and depersonalization as she “becomes” her new host. A scene I found notable was when Vos was watching her new host and slowly repeating what he said in a similar tone. While we could assume this was just another part of her job, we also see her doing this as she approaches her ex’s home. We can say Vos has empathy for those she has to kill, however this action leads me to believe that these feelings are practiced and not as genuine as I would have hoped. It reminded me of the movie Dismissed, about a young sociopath and his relationship with a professor at his school. During the big reveal (spoilers) we see old home videos of the student practicing emotional responses as a child. While this movie may be a better example for our current module, it did come to mind when I watched Vos rehearse what she was going to say.

Futurama is always a welcome reprieve after a movie like Posessor. I had mentioned the episode name to a friend (they’re a diehard fan) and they immediately knew everything that had happened. It was fun to talk about it! In the episode, Bender is implanted with an “empathy chip” so he’s able to understand Leela’s feelings better. While the episode has a happy ending and Bender is able to understand Leela (despite learning nothing) its clear that the empathy Bender was “feeling” was not genuine. This much is obvious due to the nature of the “empathy chip,” but it made me think of the “empathy” Vos tries to experience in Posessor.

Something that struck me was how Fry blamed Leela for the fact that Bender flushed himself down the toilet, a phrase I didn’t think I would ever type in an academic setting. He specifically blamed her emotions. This is something I’m definitely going to be thinking about during this current module.