Cover not available
Part of
Emotion in Texts for Children and Young Adults: Moving stories
Edited by Karen Coats and Gretchen Papazian
[Children’s Literature, Culture, and Cognition 13] 2023
► pp. 83–103

Chapter 4
Literalizing emotions in Disney and Pixar

Frozen and Inside Out challenge emotional hierarchies

| Nichols College

Frozen and Inside Out warn of the dangers of suppressing emotions. As the films literalize emotions into physical entities to emphasize that emotions exist and that we must address them, they challenge the ideas that emotions solely reside within us. Moreover, as they respond to the combined binaries of reason/emotion and male/female, which taken together label females as inferiorly emotional, the films dismantle the cultural delineation of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ girls, seen in many earlier Disney films. This chapter contrasts Disney’s portrayal of female emotions in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and Cinderella with the depictions of young female characters’ emotional lives in Frozen and Inside Out. The latter films encourage their audiences to address and express their own emotional states, importantly legitimizing girls’ pain, and given the role that Disney and its films play in our culture, potentially impacting broader understanding and acceptance of culturally denigrated emotions.

Keywords: Frozen , Inside Out , Disney, Pixar, emotional hierarchies
Article outline
  • Introduction
  • ‘With a smile and a song’: Disney’s treatment of female emotion in early films
  • Frozen : Challenging emotional interiority
  • Inside out : Challenging ‘bad’ emotions
  • Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 6 January 2023
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/clcc.13.04dey
References

Primary sources

Cinderella
1950 Directed by Clyde Geronimi, Wilfred Jackson, & Hamilton Luske. Walt Disney Productions, United States.Google Scholar
Frozen
2013 Directed by Jennifer Lee & Chris Buck. Walt Disney Animation Studios, United States.Google Scholar
Frozen II
2019 Directed by Jennifer Lee & Chris Buck. Walt Disney Animation Studios, United States.
Inside Out
2015 Directed by Pete Docter & Ronnie Del Carmen. Pixar Animation Studios, United States.Google Scholar
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
1937 Directed by William Cottrell, David Hand, and Wilfred Jackson. Walt Disney Productions, United States.Google Scholar

Secondary sources

Ahmed, Sara
2015 The Cultural Politics of Emotion, 2nd edition. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Ayo. Denise A.
2021 Do You Want to Build a Childhood Trauma?: Parental Agency and Authority in Disney’s Frozen . In Social Order and Authority in Disney and Pixar Films, Kellie Deys and Denise F. Parrillo (eds), 75–92. Lanham, Maryland: Lexington.Google Scholar
Baena, Rosalia
2012 The Epistemology of Difference: Narrative Emotions in Personal Stories of Disability. In The Emotions and Cultural Analysis, Ana Marta Gonzalez (ed), 99–114. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Boll, Jay
2015 Does Princess Elsa Have Borderline Personality Disorder? Disney’s “Frozen” as a Story of Emotional Dysregulation. [URL] 12 February 2015.
Davis, Amy M.
2007 Good Girls and Wicked Witches: Women In Disney’s Feature Animation. Eastleigh, UK: John Libbey Publishing.Google Scholar
García-González, Macarena
2017 Empathy and Materiality in Pixar’s Inside Out . Kids-Media, 53–61. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gonzalez, Ana Marta
2012 Emotional Culture and the Role of Emotions in Cultural Analysis. In The Emotions and Cultural Analysis, Ana Marta Gonzalez (ed), 1–15. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Kia-Keating, Maryam and Yalda T. Uhls
2015 The Science of Why Your Kids Can’t Resist Frozen . Time 6 Jan 2015.Google Scholar
Lavery, Louise
2017  Inside Out: Grown-Up Discussions For Little Ones. Screen Education 87: 8–15.Google Scholar
Letamendi, Andrea
2015 The Psychology of Inside Out: A Beautiful Lesson in Emotional Intelligence.” Under the Mask: A Deeper Look at Heroes and Villains 22 Jun 2015.Google Scholar
Locke, Abigail
2011 The Social Psychologising of Emotion and Gender: A Critical Perspective. In Sexed Sentiments: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Gender and Emotion, Ruberg, Willemijn and Kristine Steenbergh (eds), 185–205. Amsterdam: Rodopi.Google Scholar
Ngai, Sianne
2005 Ugly Feelings. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Nussbaum, Martha C.
2003 Upheavals of Thought: The Intelligence of Emotions. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Parkinson, Brian, Agneta H. Fischer, and Antony S. R. Manstead
2004 Emotion in Social Relations: Cultural, Group, and Interpersonal Processes. New York: Psychology Press.Google Scholar
Prost, Eric
2016 Life of the Mind. Queen’s Quarterly 123.2: 242–255.Google Scholar
Resene, Michelle
2017 From Evil Queen to Disabled Teen: Frozen Introduces Disney’s First Disabled Princess. Disability Studies Quarterly 37.2. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Scarlet, Janina
2014 Psychology of Frozen: What Makes This Disney Movie Unlike Any Other. Superhero Therapy 12 Jul 2104 <[URL]> (3 Apr 2018).
Schwartz, Karen, Zana Marie Lutifyya, Nancy Hansen
2013 Dopey’s Legacy: Stereotypical Portrayals of Intellectual Disability in the Classic Animated Films. In Diversity in Disney Films: Critical Essays on Race, Ethnicity, Gender, Sexuality, and Disability, Johnson Cheu (ed), 179–194. Jefferson, NC: McFarland.Google Scholar
Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky
. 2003 Touching Feeling: Affect, Pedagogy, Performativity. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Seepersad, Sean
2014 10 Ways Frozen Is The Story of Loneliness. Psychology Today 5 May 2014.Google Scholar
Smith, Daniel
2015 Pixar’s Mood Master: Can Pete Docter’s New Movie Change the Way We Think about our Emotions? The Atlantic 315.5: 20–21.Google Scholar