Brother Bear is an animated Disney movie released in 2003. It is part of Disney’s post-Renaissance phase from about 1997 to 2008, a period of films marked by experimentation with the Disney Renaissance formula, most noticeably a move away from European fairy tales and the “Broadway musical” format. During this era, Disney sought out a broader base of source material and inspiration, drawing from novels, non-European fairy tales, Japanese animation, and genres such as sci-fi and action/adventure, and diversifying their casts of characters. Brother Bear is very much in this experimental style. Deciding to set their story in prehistoric Stone-Age Alaska/Canada/some northern part of North America, and drawing upon the folklore of what would be their distant descendants (Inuits), there is not a single main character who is racialized as white aside from two comic relief moose. Most notably, it is one of the very few Disney movies to have neither a villain nor any kind of love interest or romantic subplot (Inside Out is another). That’s not to say that the movie is boring by any means — the story is one of the most dramatic, featuring major character death and near-fratricide. The emotional core of the movie is platonic love, including the motivations of the movie’s main antagonist.

It also helps that the main character, Kenai, is highly unsympathetic (he starts out as an immature daredevil with fairly toxic notions of masculinity) and most of the movie is focused on his personal growth. He commits a crime that so offends Nature (the “Great Spirits”) that he ends up being cursed with the body of a bear. His one saving grace, however, and a major motif of this movie, is that he would do anything for his brothers.

In the advertising of this film, the filmmakers had multiple choices about how to pitch this story, and I think they settled on a “fun, family-friendly romp about understanding what’s really important in life” playing up Kenai’s bear form, Koda (the precocious bear cub who adopts Kenai and goes on a Character Growth Road Trip with him), and the comic relief moose as the main characters. That’s arguably a reasonable way to interpret the core of this film, but ultimately I think it’s plainly incorrect. The emotional core of this movie (to me) is three brothers whose love for each other transcends life, death, distance, and form. To leave Denahi out of publicity materials — as was repeatedly done with this movie — even though he is narrator, antagonist, and has one of the most moving emotional arcs in the film, is to misunderstand or misrepresent what this film is.

What Brother Bear says it’s about: talking animals. What Brother Bear is actually about: Human characters never depicted in publicity materials; gratuitous shots of Alaskan wilderness

Motifs

This movie is littered with recurring motifs that create a cohesive arc from start to finish. The first is the question of man vs. monster. This theme is one that was earlier explored in The Hunchback of Notre Dame, where Quasimodo and Frollo are foils that represent ostensible monstrosity but inner humanity (Quasimodo) or its opposite, ostensible humanity and inner monstrosity (Frollo). The same goes for Beast and Gaston in Beauty and the Beast.

Who is the monster and who is the man?

Here, however, the motif is overloaded in multiple ways. In addition to contrasting with “monster”, the “man” part of the dichotomy also contrasts with “boy” and portrays this story as a straightforward coming-of-age story for Kenai. The “monster” part of the dichotomy contrasts with “man” in two ways: the bear as a monster in the frightening world where a run-in with Nature can leave you dead (man vs. monster as a man vs. nature conflict), and the inner monster that describes the ways in which humans fail to embody humanity. Kenai shifts through man, bear, and monster identities throughout the movie, although it’s only at the end that he has the maturity to truly see the identities for what they are.

This thematic motif is given visual form with the repeated image of the human handprint and the bear pawprint overlaid on top. The human handprint is a symbol in Kenai’s culture of having attained manhood (as opposed to boyhood); the awe of Stone Age cave paintings including the handprint and the depiction of a man vs. bear hunt (a beautiful moment in the movie) is itself a testament to the achievements of man (as opposed to nature). Throughout the movie, however, Kenai is confronted with the image of his own pawprint that he leaves behind that shuts him out of both kinds of manhood (adulthood and personhood). Also, I should note that the image of linked hands is a symbol of both humanity but also fraternity (familial love) — this echoes what was done with hands pressed together in Tarzan.

The way hands and the man vs. monster contrast are used throughout the film

That brings us to another motif: sibling love. In particular, there are many brother relationships in this film, where, on the surface, the brothers are obnoxious and irritating to each other, but also at the end of the day willing to go to the ends of the earth for each other. This dynamic is present throughout the opening scene in very subtle, unremarked-upon ways, where Kenai gets on his brothers’ nerves (particularly middle brother Denahi), but is also constantly being rescued by them, even at great risk to themselves. This dynamic of combined irritation and devotion recurs throughout the film.

Finally, there is the motif of “seeing through another’s eyes.” This phrase appears in the lyrics of a song, and is also visually represented via a gimmick in the format of the film itself, where the film changes its aspect ratio and color palette about one-third of the way through, after Kenai wakes up as a bear. Literally, the world looks different to him (and to the viewer) after he has been transformed. It is also significant that Kenai’s transformation not only turns him into a bear (and gives him a chance to see his own actions through the eyes of other creatures) but also forces him into the role of an older brother, a role that requires maturity from him and also helps him understand his older brother better.

Music

Brother Bear‘s soundtrack is an attempt to partially escape the musical format of 90s Disney movies. It has original songs with lyrics, but they are for the most part sung by various musicians who serve as a narrator, rather than by the characters within the film. The composer and lyricist here is Phil Collins, whose lyrics are very different from the Broadway musical style of the Disney Renaissance lyricists like Howard Ashman, Tim Rice, or Steven Schwartz. If you’re looking for clever wordplay like “As a specimen, yes I’m intimidating” or rhyming “Adonis” with “croissant is”… this movie doesn’t have that. It instead has lyrics that sound like the immediate thoughts of the characters whose mind they’re meant to give voice to, very often monosyllabically and with meter, but often no rhyme (example: “This has to be the most beautiful, the most peaceful, place I’ve ever been to. It’s nothing like I’ve ever seen before.”).

Phil Collins’s songwriting and lyrics are extremely polarizing. At one end, Phil Collins is considered basically a talentless songwriter with a grating voice and musical style and painfully basic lyrics. At the other, his voice is considered unique and his songs catchy or even powerful. I’m more at the second end — I think his songs work for this movie, with the instrumental pieces building up dramatic moments, and his lyrics delivering raw emotional punch in the form of someone directly expressing their feelings. And even someone who hates the sound of Phil Collins’s voice will be spared some pain — half of the songs are not sung by him, which gives the movie more vocal variety than Phil Collins’s previous collaboration with Disney, Tarzan.

Caveats

As much as I love Brother Bear, it is a film that I have difficulty recommending without disclaimers. The first disclaimer (mentioned earlier) is the comic relief moose. This movie objectively would have been better without them. They add nothing to the movie aside from padding some scenes. There was a weak rationale for their continued existence in the movie (apparently, the makers debated back and forth for a really long time whether to keep them in) in that they are brothers and fit the whole “brothers” dynamic that keeps recurring throughout the film, and come in at a key moment in the film to remind Koda of what it means to be brothers. It’s… very weak, though, and I think the movie would be more economical and much stronger without them.

The second disclaimer is that this movie leans pretty heavily into a New Age aesthetic. The focus on Native American spirituality, the heavy-handed moralizing about how important it is to See Through Other People’s Eyes, including the fact that animals have the same moral worth as human beings (just don’t think about all the fish that the bears murder…) can be very grating.

Still, overall, as long as you’re capable of mentally erasing the moose from this film through sheer willpower, I think Brother Bear is a forgotten movie that’s worth a second look. It’s a movie from a period of time when Disney was actually doing some interesting experimentation, and overall the movie provides some great moments that are rare in Disney movies before or since.

The Destigmatization of Sadness in Inside Out

I’m giving Disney/Pixar an A in mental health awareness for their recent work. It seems like this is their pet topic these days, with Inside Out being the third movie running to tackle emotional health issues. First, in Disney’s Frozen, Elsa’s emotional issues and repression struck chords with people suffering from a wide variety of mental ails, such as depression, bipolar, and anxiety. Then in Disney’s Big Hero 6, Baymax makes it clear that his job as a healthcare robot is to attend to injuries both physical AND mental (the latter being the case with Hiro), and Pixar continues this pattern with Inside Out. Following the perspective of the well-meaning but unwise Joy, Inside Out contains a message about mental health that hinges on destigmatizing sadness and learning to appreciate its indispensable role in life.

I think my first impression of this movie is a representative starting place: When I first saw the Emotions introduced in the trailer — Joy, Sadness, Anger, Fear, and Disgust — my thought was that it was strange that there was only one positive emotion out of the bunch. “Weird,” I thought. “I wonder why these are predominantly (4 out of 5) negative emotions.”¹ In a sense, my first thought that these are negative emotions was right — the other four emotions deal with / react to negative, unpleasant things in the environment (annoying things, scary things, disgusting things, etc.), and so we would just prefer to go through life not feeling them if given the choice.

However, the idea of the emotions other than Joy being negative is the exact myth that the movie aims to dispel. The beginning of the movie immediately gives them all a positive spin after each emotion is introduced. Anger helps Riley assert her space, rights, preferences. Fear keeps Riley safe from danger. Disgust keeps Riley from being poisoned, either physically or socially (i.e. keeps her away from low-quality things). It is only Sadness that the movie’s protagonist, Joy, has trouble understanding the positive side of.

Over the course of the movie, the lessons Joy learns about Sadness are ones the audience would do well to take to heart as well.

Lesson #1: There is a rational dimension to all emotions

One of the best scenes in the movie for me was the one in which Riley’s mother is able to change Riley’s mood by framing the current situation in a way where Riley’s perseverance through the difficult moving process makes the situation much more bearable for the parents, and how much they appreciate it. Before this moment, the “negative” emotions (Anger, Disgust, and Fear), like malcontent mutineers aboard Joy’s Happy Ship, were threatening to seize control from Joy, as there was just no way it was appropriate for Riley to look past all the disappointing, unpleasant, and awful recent experiences to continue to be cheerful (as she would if Joy were to have her way). However, upon hearing this speech, the three willingly give control back to Joy, saying, “Well, you can’t argue with Mom!”

As someone who has had a foul mood completely turned around by a little gesture of appreciation or a random act of kindness, I really liked this depiction of moods being able to suddenly shift despite an overwhelming amount of stress. Aside from that, though, I liked this depiction of emotions as responding to new information in the external world and able to be swayed by reason. Sometimes people depict emotion as the opposite of rationality, possibly because when we are overwhelmed by emotion, it’s hard to reason calmly. However, this is a false dichotomy because emotions not only (usually) have reasons behind them, but emotions are also influenced by the rational thoughts we think and how we conceive of the emotion. Rationality is present in emotions of all kinds.

In Riley’s mind, there is only one emotion shut out of the mood control process, and whose function Joy is not able to understand, and who does random “destructive” acts to Riley’s memories without being able to explain why she felt compelled to do so: Sadness. To all the emotions, Sadness’s actions — turning a happy memory suddenly sad, stepping up to the control panel without warning — seem random, intrusive, unwanted. But to the audience, it’s obvious what’s going on. Feeling down, Riley looks back on her happy memories, and finds (with some horror) that they’re suddenly tinged with sadness. And Sadness keeps absent-mindedly trying to take control because she senses on some level that she is needed, that her emotion is the one that makes the most sense for Riley at that moment — like sadness creeping in on the edges of someone who doesn’t want to admit that they’re sad.

This depiction of the “irrationality” of Sadness’s actions is a huge and important part of the film. When an observer (like Joy) cannot see, understand, or recognize the function/purpose/usefulness/role/reason behind the emotion of sadness, the state of being sad becomes frighteningly irrational/unreasonable/gratuitous/inscrutable/intrusive.

It is critical for Riley that Joy, over the course of the movie, realizes that Sadness has strengths and functions that make her indispensable, and reasons for her actions. The first lesson being…

Lesson #2a: Sadness is needed for empathizing
Lesson #2b: Sadness helps people move on

When Bing Bong loses his wagon, Joy tries to get him to power through or be diverted from his sadness using the techniques she knows — cheer-based techniques like pep talks, wheedling, optimism, amusement. She knows from experience that sometimes these techniques work (like in the above-mentioned scene), but this time it doesn’t. Sadness, however, empathizes with him and gets him to talk through what he’s feeling.

I like this very short video on the difference between sympathy and empathy, which almost reads like an explanation of the difference between Joy and Sadness’s technique:

Similar to what this short talk illustrates, sometimes it’s more meaningful or more helpful to someone not to offer humor, levity, or positive-thinking (or solutions), but to instead acknowledge their sadness or pain by getting on their level instead. This is one function of Sadness (and other emotions) in the movie — the ability to connect with the sadness that someone is experiencing. Each emotion can do this with their own emotion, but (for example) Joy cannot do it with other people’s sadness.

In addition, this scene hints at another function or purpose for sadness. Only after talking about his sadness is Bing Bong able to get over the loss of the wagon and move on to the next things.

I think this is also true to life. Having kept a diary since high school, the good that journaling has done me is very obvious to me. Writing an entry would let me organize my thoughts and get to the bottom of what exactly made me so upset in various situations, and after the painful experience of poking into all that was done (which pretty much involved an hour or two of crying), the productive next steps always became so clear to me. It’s difficult to figure out what course of action to take next when you don’t fully understand what’s upsetting you, so cutting that sadness short would have made it much harder to arrive at the point of clarity.

Small amounts of sadness or stress can be powered through without needing any closure, but sometimes you need to examine a sad event closely and deal with it before you feel okay with leaving it behind / moving past it / forgiving and forgetting. Suppressing it makes it smaller and less weighty, but means you still carry it everywhere.

Lesson #3a: Sadness is a plea for help
Lesson #3b: The suppression of sadness can cause mental harm

This is the biggest and final realization that Joy has about the function of Sadness.

In the pivotal scene of the movie, Joy discovers that a memory that she “won” (is joyful / yellow-colored) actually started out blue and sad. The way it was converted to a happy memory was by Riley’s parents and friends showing up to cheer her up after a failed game. Joy finally understands that Sadness’s main function is to signal to the external world that Riley needs something, that she needs support and help, that she can’t solve her problems by herself. That’s important because seeking help IS a good and sensible response to sadness and depression, and that connection (sadness -> seek help) is a good one for people to keep in mind. Pushing sadness down or trying to power through it means that you erase the external, detectable signals that you need help.

Aside from the suppression of sadness, the other issue related to the expression of sadness is that sometimes people DO express sadness, but they don’t receive support. They are dismissed, told they shouldn’t be sad, told their sadness is annoying or burdensome for other people, and so on.

And it’s true, dealing with someone else’s sadness is mentally/emotionally taxing. It very much CAN be a burden. Sometimes there’s just nothing that a particular person can do to help. People have limits. In such cases, it might be tempting to minimize or attempt to erase someone’s sadness in a lazier way by simply saying it doesn’t exist. However, this does not help the person at all, and instead makes it so they form a different connections about sadness instead — (sadness -> don’t seek help, because you won’t get it), or (sadness -> don’t be sad) — in their mind.

One thing that’s a bit odd about the Emotions in Inside Out is that it’s not clear if they are a part of Riley herself or if they have a caretaker relationship to her similar to that of a parent. Supporting the idea of emotions as sometimes-parents, Joy sometimes shows a sense of pride in Riley’s accomplishments or, when she replays a favorite memory, a nostalgic fondness for time spent “watching Riley grow up” — much closer to a parent than an ego. And like a parent/caretaker/someone who cares deeply for Riley’s wellbeing, Joy (and the other Emotions, even Sadness) hate seeing Riley sad. But it’s this (well-meaning) reluctance or determined resistance toward the idea of seeing someone you love sad that causes damage to that person.

I think that’s an important message — the attitude you hold towards emotions affects mental states. Many mental wellness handbooks start with the important step of learning to validate (acknowledge, non-judgmentally, the presence of) “negative” emotions, like sadness, embarrassment, hatred, jealousy, etc. If we can’t do this, we pathologically disrupt the function and role of sadness.

In conclusion, Inside Out contains an important message about the importance and value of the emotion sadness, by following the viewpoint and mistakes of the main character, Joy, who, with the best of intentions, tries to protect her human Riley from unhappiness, disappointment, or failure. The result of her mistreatment of Sadness, though, is Riley undergoing a severe mental breakdown. Even some of the reactions to this movie indicate a continued assumption that sadness is a “bad” emotion. Hopefully, sadness will continue to be destigmatized and be recognized as a health-promoting emotion.

[1] Of course, they’re based on Ekman’s basic six universal emotions, minus Surprise, so that’s at least one reason behind the choices… but that’s beside the point about how it’s important to question whether these emotions are actually negative!