Day: August 2, 2022

In this module we focused on the different theories behind emotions. Emotions are part of our cognitive system and it’s impossible to separate our rational mind and emotional body. We created emotions with our life experiences, they do not just happen to us. This week we watched Inside Out and episode Man of the People from Star Trek: The Next Generation. 

“Man of the People” Star Trek: The Next Generation

In this episode, the Enterprise is set out to help Ambassador Alkar be transported to Rekag, where he’ll be a part of a negotiation between two other planets. After his mother’s death, Alkar performs a ritual with Troi in which he transfers all his negative emotions to her. Since counselor Troi is considered to be an empath, it is hinted that Alkar chose her for this because she would be able to take in emotions easier than anyone else. Counselor Troi quickly begins to change along with her body, further conveying the connection between the body and mind. We see Troi during meditation (in which body and mind are intertwined) staring at a mirror, and studying her body as if she were seeing it change before her. She begins to act out in anger and jealousy towards others, and ultimately her body ages fast, shocking Alkar. It’s possible that because she was an empath, she “absorbed” the negative emotions quicker which resulted in her quick transformation compared to other receptacles. This episode further explains the Theory of Emotional Construction because the emotions did not just happen to Troi, they were transported into her mind, which would mean they happened to her, and in turn deteriorated her body.

Inside Out

In Inside Out, we meet eleven year old Riley and her 5 emotions: joy, sadness, anger, disgust and fear. Her memories and emotions were created from experiences she went through while growing up. The older she got, the more memories she made and the more emotions she made, which explains how emotions are created by us, and not just happen to us. This is further explained when she decides to leave San Francisco to go back to Minnesota to create more joyful memories, which will make her happy again. 

The emotions made her act in certain ways because emotions are constructed concepts based on our social reality. Going to a new school meant she wanted to get in with the popular crowd, which is why she tried acting “cool” in front of the popular kids, and why she was devastated when she began crying in front of her classmates. Since bodily sensations are emotions, we were able to understand and see she was sad when she started to cry remembering her life back in Minnesota. I thought the core memories being created towards the end in all different colors of her emotions was a creative way to show how complex emotions and memories are.

This week we watched Disney’s Inside Out and Star Trek Season 6, Episode 3 “Man of the People”. Both texts cover how emotions are inseparable from out cognitive systems and how emotions aren’t something that merely happens to us but are something that we create within ourselves.

In general, I don’t watch a lot of PIXAR movies which is really weird because I always end up crying over each movie during and after I’ve watched them. Recently, it was Inside Out and Soul that have made me cry like that. And they’re not even sad tears, they’re tears of resonance followed by neck and body chills.

Anyways, Inside Out follows a group of sentient emotions that live within the brain of Riley, who is experiencing a lot of new and varying feelings throughout the course of the film. The one thing I took notice of was how the character of Sadness was represented through out the film. I feel like PIXAR movies always try and touch on different important aspects of life that aren’t spotlighted on enough in this day in age. In this case, Sadness is represented as being suppressed by the other emotions. Joy, being Sadness’s contrasting counterpart, is seen trying to put down  Sadness and thinks there is no room or even necessity for Sadness within Riley’s “emotional headquarters”. I feel in today’s society, Sadness is almost an emotion used when you’ve reached a breaking point. In other words, you can be joyful or angry or even fearful with a snap of a finger but everyone’s sadness is so repressed and hidden. For instance, when was the last you cried in public? We see from the classroom scene, Fear is afraid of people casting judgement onto Riley as she stands up infront of the class and introduces herself. She begins to cry while looking back at memories from Minnesota and the Fear emotion kicks in as its embarrassing almost to cry in front of people, which is an unfortunate stigma in today’s world.

   

One other scene I would like to look at, briefly, is the scene pertaining to the creation of core memories. This is an example of the Theory of Social Construction. Each memory within Riley’s core memory bank are joyful memories but towards the end of the film, we see that even the most joyful memories are created through the other emotions. The particular memory in this case is Riley’s memory of the aftermath of losing the big hockey game. She’s sitting on a tree limb with her parents comforting her. All this time, Joy though the ending of this memory, which involves Riley being paraded and cheered at by her teammates under the trees was a core memory of joy but in reality it was a core memory of sadness turning into joy, not one or the other.  

In the Star Trek episode, “Man of the People”, the crew of the Enterprise recieve a distress call from a transporter ship called “The Dorian” which is carrying a Lemurians Ambassador named Ves Alkar and his supposed “grandmother”. We later learn that his “grandmother” is actually a 30 year old victim of Alkar’s negative emotions. One thing I would like to take notice of was the fact that Lieutenant Worf is seen teaching a mok’bara exercise class (which is essentially Klingon Tai Chi) with Deanna Troi and Ves Alkar attending. Mok’bara, in the Klingon Culture (not to nerd out or anything) is a technique similar to meditiation–it is used to both clear the mind and phsyical protection (Mok’bara is the basis of Klingon hand-to-hand combat). Aside from the fact that watching Worf teach a meditation class is seemingly hilarious and contrasts to his more serious Klingon maneurisms, Mok’bara works as a contrast to Alkar’s funeral meditation. Alkar’s funeral meditation highlights the fact that Alkar is an “energy vampire” of sorts. Where Worf meditation works to clear the mind and protect yourself, Alkar’s meditation is works to lower your defenses and allow him to inflict his negative emotions onto you. Being that Troi is an empath, this means that she is more vulnerble to attacks of this nature as well as being more effected by them.

Throughout the episode, we see Deanna Troi changing and acting different due to being inflicted by Alkar’s emotions. She’s more seductive and abrasive where she usually is very calm and empathic. I feel it is important to notice that Alkar’s victims growing old represent their core emotional feelings being sucked out of the body, very much how, in Inside Out, with absence of the Joy and Sadness, Riley is left feeling more frustrated and “not her self”.

This week, we delved into the processing of emotion, watching Disney’s Inside Out and “Man of the People” from Star Trek: The Next Generation. I laughed, cried, and experienced almost every emotion possible along with these characters.

I watched Inside Out first; a movie I’ve seen a few times before, though this is the first time I’m truly appreciating it. It’s so sweet and such a relatable story. We follow the personified emotions of young Riley as she moves across the country, both her and her emotions struggling with the process. While Joy and Sadness have to trek across Riley’s inner mind, wreaking havoc as they do, Riley suffers the consequences and acts out against the people in her life.

Though I believe the writer’s intentions were to depict the changes we experience when growing up, I think this could also be a really brilliant way to depict mental illness. Riley’s emotions act for her, flipping switches to make decisions, which becomes a huge issue when only Anger, Disgust, and Fear are in control. This is akin to mental illness; I imagine depression would be as if Sadness was in control of your actions most of the time, while anger issues would be like if Anger was always in control. As someone with ADHD, I think my emotions are constantly pushing each other out of the way to take the wheel – they’re probably bouncing off the walls in there! I also think that the scene towards the end when Riley makes her first core memory out of two emotions – both Joy and Sadness – is a great depiction of growing up. As a child, your worldview is much more black-and-white, so it makes sense that Riley’s memories would be centered in one emotion. As she discovers the difficulties and nuances of life, she gains more memories that are a just as nuanced.

While nearly all the topics of this week’s lecture could be tied into Inside Out, I found myself connecting the Theory of Emotional Construction to it the most. This states that emotions are not something that happen to you, but are something that you construct from your experience. All of Riley’s memories are experiences tied directly to emotions and they are created simultaneously. One cannot exist without the other; emotion shapes Riley’s experience, while experience also shapes her emotions. I think the way Inside Out depicts Riley’s memories is a really simple and efficient way to communicate this theory.

I then watched “Man of the People” from Star Trek: The Next Generation, and man, have I been absolutely loving the Star Trek episodes we’ve had to watch! I’d never seen the Star Trek T.V. shows before this class, but now I’m going to add it to the weekly rotation of shows I play in the background while I’m doing work or cleaning (along with She-ra and the Princesses of Power, Ghibli movies, and basically every other cartoon available).

This time on the Enterprise, they are carrying Alkar, an ambassador, to mediate peace talks in order to end a civil war. The ship’s counselor, Deanna Troi, began to act strange after spending some time with him; flirting with various men on the ship, wearing scandalous clothing, and becoming angry for no apparent reason. It is only revealed towards the end of the episode that Alkar had found a way to offload his negative emotions onto other people, which helped him become an extremely effective ambassador, and Deanna is going to die because of it.

The logistics of this are a bit more complicated than “Deanna feels Alkar’s negative emotions”, though. Deanna, and the other woman who Alkar did this to, seem to feel their own negative feelings in an extreme way because of Alkar’s. For example, it is shown that the receptacles Alkar takes are all women and have had a lot of romantic tension with him. When Deanna and the woman Alkar first appears with both accuse other women of wanting him and say to stay far away from him, they are expressing an extremely heightened version of their thoughts. This agrees with the Theory of Emotional Construction, as well; while Alkar and Deanna both understand the concept of anger, they will express it in different ways according to their life experiences.

The two films in this unit are my favorites, mainly because of “Inside Out.” I cried while watching. It is a warm and heartbreaking masterpiece. If there is no sadness, where is the meaning of joy?

 

Insider Out

I don’t think “Inside Out” expresses James Lange’s theory. The emotional role is to transmit Riley’s emotions through the organ button of the brain command. The hypothalamus inspired the interior design of this fun brain commander, and the producers didn’t want it to look too sci-fi but wanted it to be a place that looked warm and comfortable, where emotions could make their home. I think this design expresses that emotions, minds, and cognition are one rather than separate. Additionally, Riley feels disgusted is shown when the character Disgust flips those power switches, and Riley’s behavior does the same, so she knocks over the plate. It goes against James’ idea because Riley’s mind (Disgust) understands the situation and then makes Riley do her act. However, James’ point is that Riley would be disgusted for not liking broccoli. So “disgust” wouldn’t be the one who flipped the switch for Riley to Disgust. James believes that the physical sensation is the emotion, not the character of Disgust. Thus, one of the things I love about this movie is that it does an outstanding job of connecting emotions, bodies, and minds, and we can see how each emotional character can provoke Riley’s reactions.

Another link to the lecture is a quote from Lisa Feldman-Barrett, who said emotions are socially constructed. For example, emotional changes in Riley’s parents stem from social constructs, including family and the workplace. When we observe Riley’s upbringing, we realize that the world is not perfect. The film’s turning point happened when Riley’s father moved to San Francisco for work. Although Riley was very uneasy facing the new environment and new classmates, she still faced it positively and optimistically, but then sadness suddenly appeared. Uncontrollable behavior, she will involuntarily touch the memory, even the core memory, which frightened Joy and quickly warned sad not to feel it. It reflects our usual attitude towards sadness – try to avoid it; it’s OK to pretend you’re not painful and try to make yourself happy, even if it’s fake happiness. Barrett’s point is Riley’s sadness in the face of new circumstances and the stimulation of new classmates. Moreover, this film keeps emotionally resonating with audiences because we all had a Bing Bong in childhood. The debilitating and disappearing Bing Bong is a trigger point when we sense an emotion, which arises by categorizing physical stimuli in our cultural context. Emotions do not happen to us but because we perceive them. Therefore, I believe that emotions are part of our cognitive system.

“Man of The People” Star Trek

This episode brings up the concept of empathy again. Alkar revealed to Picard that he could channel his negative emotions onto another person, a “receptacle” that allows him to be clear-headed and level-headed as a negotiator. Knowing that this would lead to accelerated aging and death of the recipient within a few years, Arka did not foresee her rapid symptoms when he chose Troi as his next recipient. So Troi becomes more and more vulnerable until death. It’s incredible to see how these negative emotions Troi was going through caused her to age very, very quickly. But it also shows how emotions, minds, and bodies are linked, as we see the harmful effects of negative emotions on the body. At the same time, the ” receptacle ” role reminds me of the empathy chip in the episode of “Futurama,” where Bender experiences Leela’s emotions. Both Alkar and Bender lack empathy, and thus both lack the ability to understand feelings in a given context. On the other hand, neither Troi nor the chipped Bender can express their emotions.

Ps: Why do we need sadness? She said,”Crying helps me slow down and not obsessive worried of life’s problems.”

In Inside Out, I thought it was interesting that Riley’s brain was depicted as a factory, beginning with popping out core memories of Joy and then expanding the production center to different feelings. Not only that, but, when Riley lost her core memories, the solution was to travel to Minnesota and make new ones. This showed me that though an emotion is something you (and pretty much everyone) can create, how it’s developed is dependent on your environment. She was determined to go back to the source of her happiness: the home where she first experienced joy.

When I re-read the phrase,  “an emotion is something you create”, it sounded weird when I said it out loud because that’s usually a phrase you associate with memories. Memories are created. But all of Riley’s memories are attached to a specific emotion, so are memories just physical representations of our emotions in different settings? Also, something I noticed was, though the emotions seemingly worked together, Riley’s memories had a few set outcomes: a solid yellow (Joy), red (Anger), green(Disgust), or purple color (Fear). Each emotion would take turns as the pilot of the spaceship that was Riley’s mind and saved the memory. 

There were two scenes that stood out to me: the scene where Joy watches a memory of Riley losing a hockey game and the ending, when each emotion contributes to the core memories. After watching the entire memory, Joy realized that Sadness is a necessary emotion because it functions as the precursor to joy. Instead of icing out Sadness, Joy really should’ve been embracing her. Another scene that stood out to me was when Riley’s memories were no longer one solid color. Rather, they were rainbow colored, signifying that her core memories became a mixture of all the emotions, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. 

 

 

 

 

 

I really enjoyed the Star Trek episode “Man of the People”. While I wouldn’t go about it the way the Ambassador did, I would also like to offload my emotions into a receptacle if given the chance. I like the idea of separating emotions from the body to allow one to think straight so as to achieve a higher purpose. This episode seems to go against the Theory of Constructed Emotion since it separates feelings from the body and supports Plato’s idea of rational thinking. For example, emotions act as a force to deteriorate Troi’s body over time.

 

 

 

 

 

Lust and anger caused her to age quicker than usual- not just in her appearance (grey hair and sagging jowls), but also mentally. Her brain entered a state of psychosis.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Compare her, who’s been transformed into the stereotype of a hysterical woman, to the calm and composed Alkar whose decisions are unaffected by how he’s feeling at the moment. It plays well into the stereotype that men are better at reasoning than women are since they can disconnect from or reconnect to emotions whenever necessary. Troi even confirmed this at the beginning of the episode when she complained that, “Sometimes my body has a problem conforming to my mind’s conditions”. In other words, her mind tells her how to feel, but the body doesn’t always act accordingly.