Emotions function as a guide for us to survive and thrive. They focus on our attention and motivate us to take a specific course of action. Emotions are also contagious because our feelings can spread between people, like a virus. We tend to pick up on each other’s emotional states whether we realize it or not.
In the movie Inside Out, Riley has different emotions inside of her and we get to see how they all work and think. We have Joy, Sadness, Fear, Disgust and Anger. We get to see how each emotion functions and how they effect Riley. When Joy and Sadness are gone we see Riley struggling as she can only experience anger, fear and disgust. She struggles with her identity and expressing her emotions. In the scene where her mom talks about hockey, her favorite sport, Riley can only react with disgust when she should’ve reacted with Joy. When Anger takes over the control panel, the father also begins to get upset over her attitude, showing how emotions can be contagious. In the end when sadness and joy work together, Riley seems happier and more comfortable again because she is able to express the proper feelings. We need every single emotion in order to survive. If I was only controlled by anger, I’m pretty sure my road rage would be a lot worse haha
In Man of the People, Troi go through an emotion “curse”. We see Troi get very sexual by making advances to people on the ship, and even signs of rapid aging. Troi even expresses a bunch of anger when she discovers Alkar working with Liva and even tries to attack him with a knife. In the slides from this week, we learned that an instance of emotion arises by categorizing our culturally contextualized body stimuli. I think this applies to Troi because her anger for example caused her to attack Alkar with a knife, an out of the ordinary action for her character. She was unable to control her body and emotions. I feel like this episode was a little similar to the Futurama episode we watched when Bender was experiencing Leela’s emotions. Bender couldn’t really control his emotions in a way that Troi couldn’t truly express hers.
SIDE NOTE: did anyone else cry when Bing Bong died? I was crying so hard; I haven’t watched this movie in a while and I forgot how sad his death was. I tend to cry in every movie lol
4 thoughts on “Is “UGH” an Emotion?”
Hi Brianna,
You make a great point about how our emotions are contagious. If we are with a group of people who are giddy or angry, we’re likely to feel that way as well. We also tend to mimic or mirror the emotions of people we are talking with. This kind of mimicry is one of the ways that humans bond with each other.
I like that in your discussion of the Star Trek episode, you are thinking about the Theory of Constructed emotion in relation to the way that Deanna experiences emotions once Aklar has offloaded his negative emotions onto her. Can you say a bit more about how this relates to how we categorize emotions? What do we make of Deanna’s extreme and violent experience of her social and physical interactions? What do you make of her inability to control her emotions? How does that relate to what you learned about in this week’s VT?
And based on other people’s blogs, you are certainly not alone in crying when Bing Bong died. I know that I always do as well. It is interesting to think about why so many people experience tears and sadness during that part of the film.
Jessica Hautsch
Hey Brianna, First of all – yes I cried when Bing Bong died, something about not just his personal sacrifice for Riley’s well-being, but also just that “physical” representation of her childhood/innocence fading away and forgotten just gets me. I think it’s a really important observation how Joy and Sadness being gone affected her Identity and her relationships with both her friends and family. Even as the other emotions tried to mimic Joy the way their actions presented themselves was not with Joy and that clearly came across in her responses. I think it was interesting as an empath she should be used to experiencing the emotions of others but she was still affected so strongly by alkar’s negative emotions. (Im going to answer my own question here) I think that the difference is that she’s used to momentary brushes with other’s emotions and not having to hold onto them. A person learns to regulate their own emotions but when she receives his all of the negative emotions in her body are amplified to an unmanageable degree and she acts accordingly. I couldn’t imagine having to keep my own anger in check and then having another person’s thrust on me, not only would I now have theirs – but, my own anger would be going crazy.
nperalta
Absolutely SOBBED when Bing Bong died. My dog came in to check on me. I didn’t remember it being that sad !
I was really struck by the first image you added to your post. I often forget the words that make up larger words and the fact that the word “motion” is in “emotion” reminds me of how Riley was able to keep moving forward in her life when her emotions were able to react to what was happening to her. When she was unable to feel, she shut down and was left in an unsafe situation. Emotions really promote motion !
arbuonaiuto
Hey Brianna,
I love how you explain emotions like a virus. They definitely impact everyone around. I also love how you said we need all emotions in order to survive. I think that we would think that we only need positive emotions. However, I also believe it is important that we experience all emotions in order to stay balanced. Also, I love how you connected what we learned from the slides to Troi and how her anger caused her to attack Alkar with a knife. And you’ve even connected it to Bender from Futurama as well. It is crazy what emotions can do to people. The movie even caused your emotions to come out as well lol which is awesome to experience. Great work!
Anthony Aromolo