With the imminent release of Inside Out 2, revisiting the original film is only natural. As it is to note that, long before the blatant anti-San Francisco campaign that rolled out at full force after the pandemic, Inside Out was throwing major shade at the place once called “the Paris of the West” (this as a means of alluring people to it at a time when it was still developing as an urban epicenter). Considering that Pixar’s headquarters are in Emeryville (effectively an “extension” of San Francisco), it comes as no surprise that the movie would take place there. What is perhaps something of a surprise is the number of moments in the film that seek to denigrate rather than elevate the city. But you know what they say: it’s always your own kind that ends up selling you down the river (if one will pardon the rooted-in-slavery expression).
As “alpha emotion” Joy (Amy Poehler) spends the first few minutes of Inside Out detailing the inner workings of Riley Andersen’s (Kaitlyn Dias) mind, it doesn’t take long before her vision of the eleven-year-old’s happy, idyllic existence in Minnesota is shattered. In fact, the Andersen family’s unexpected move to San Francisco is already happening within the eight-minute mark of the movie, with the title “Inside Out” only appearing just as the Andersens approach the Golden Gate Bridge. It’s upon seeing it from the backseat of the car that, from Riley’s mind, Joy shouts, “Hey look! The Golden Gate Bridge! Isn’t that great? It’s not made out of solid gold like we thought, which is kind of a disappointment, but still…”
The next recognizable landmark as the car continues toward their new house is the Ferry Building, with Fear (Bill Hader) remarking to Joy as they pass it, “I sure am glad you told me earthquakes are a myth, Joy. Otherwise I’d be terrified right now.” Joy replies, “Uh, yeah.” So already, there is this overt mood of disdain for the city, further fueled by a preteen’s inherent mistrust of the things they’re not familiar with. Any brief “romance” period with the town via the Golden Gate Bridge and the Ferry Building seems to quickly wear off by the third scene in the city, during which Riley and her parents are caught in bumper-to-bumper traffic on the famed part of Lombard Street known as “the crookedest street in the world.”
To further emphasize that San Francisco must be a miserable place, it is only Anger (Lewis Black) who chimes in at the sound of incessantly blaring horns and belligerent screaming to say, “These are my kind of people.” Of course, Anger’s vaguely positive tune, along with Disgust’s (Mindy Kaling) and Fear’s (Sadness [Phyllis Smith] was already firmly not into this to begin with), changes instantly when the car pulls up in front of a “dilapidated” townhouse. That’s right, the family is about to move into a townhouse that would fetch millions of dollars in any San Francisco neighborhood, regardless of being in a “dingy alley” or not. And yet, Riley is acting as though it’s the worst place in the world. “Too young,” or whatever, to understand “appreciating property values.” Especially since it seems like Mr. Andersen (Kyle MacLachlan) and Mrs. Andersen (Diane Lane) actually bought the place instead of renting. No matter to Riley, who has apparently been too sheltered for most of her sanitized life to have ever seen a dead mouse. This being one of her first sights upon entering the spacious abode.
But spaciousness doesn’t matter if her room isn’t “conventionally structured,” instead situated in more of an “attic” position—this being a clear machination on the writers’ part designed to give Riley some “poor little scullery maid” cachet. Despite Joy’s best intentions to keep Riley in a positive mood in the face of her “undesirable” living conditions, they’re met with another decidedly “San Francisco-style” setback when Joy tries to distract Riley with the idea of going to lunch. Flashing the image of the pizza place (Yeast of Eden) she saw on the car ride over, Joy plants the seed in Riley’s mind that she’s just hungry. That’s the real reason why she’s irritable. Or worse still, sad.
Thus, to be presented with, apparently, a decidedly San Francisco approach to pizza—a.k.a. the appearance of broccoli on it—is the last straw for Riley, who is now officially out of any will to put on rose-colored glasses about this move. Because yes, in addition to having poor taste in housing (or rather, poor taste in understanding what good housing is), she also has a gauche Minnesotan palate that can’t accept anything “unconventional” on a pizza. Alas, considering that broccoli has held a lifelong negative association for her (thanks to Disgust), seeing it on her pizza is “too much” for her. Her mom doesn’t help Riley’s outlook on the “tragedy” either, shrugging, “What kind of pizza place only serves one kind of pizza? Must be a San Francisco thing, huh?”
Even Joy—who usually refuses to see the negative side of anything—has to agree, demanding, “Who puts broccoli on pizza?” Anger then snarls, “Congratulations San Francisco, you’ve ruined pizza! First the Hawaiians, and now you.” Obviously, it’s a pointed comment not just on the supposedly inferior pizza San Francisco has to offer, but also on the generally “chichi” (ergo, overpriced) fare residents are subjected to in the wake of gentrification on steroids.
And, speaking of that, Mr. Andersen’s fraught phone call about needing to find investors before they have to start laying people off smacks of being the kind of odious “tech guy” (one will refrain from saying “tech bro”) that SF has become irrevocably synonymous with. Hence, yet another unfavorable impression of the city in terms of “the man it’s making her father become”—absent, distant and impatient. Worse still, an ungrateful gentrifier.
Riley’s anxiety levels are further sent into overdrive by the effect the move is having on her parents’ relationship, which is becoming…tense. Something she never saw between them before. But, again, her lily-livered, privileged existence seems to make her more prone to such sensitivity over very little. Including the sound of noisy cars that also cast “ominous” shadows on her wall from outside the window. Fear’s response to it is a terrified, nonsensical wondering as to whether it might be a bear. “There are no bears in San Francisco,” Disgust balks at Fear (though that’s not really true, thanks to the increased presence of black bears leaving their natural habitat). Anger chimes in, “I saw a really hairy guy. He looked like a bear.” Somehow, that feels like a “subtle” nod to the Castro…for those who get it.
Naturally, though, the Emeryville-based Pixar team isn’t counting on the average audience being “in the know” about San Francisco…apart from embracing the tired stereotypes about it as a place of “horrors” (a.k.a. real life), a place to avoid. And, soon enough, a place to run away from. For, without Joy and Sadness—the “alphas” of the emotional “headquarters”—Anger, Fear and Disgust try their best to fill the void where leadership is. The result, expectedly, is all-out emotional dysregulation, with Riley giving in to the whim of assuming that going back to Minnesota without telling her parents is the best way to find happiness again. Luckily, Joy and Sadness make it back to headquarters in time to correct the situation, with Joy allowing Sadness, at last, to take the reins (as she should have from the start of this move).
When Riley returns from her botched attempt at running away, she finally admits to her parents, “I miss Minnesota.” The funny thing, of course, is that if she had stayed in said state, she likely would have tried to move to California anyway after graduating from high school. Minnesotans are always seeking warmer weather, which, of course, exists literally anywhere else except Minnesota. And Midwesterners in general are always seeking “freakier” pastures (see: Chappell Roan). But since Minnesota represents “home” to her, and her home isn’t a place she yet associates with oppression and conservative values, San Francisco is pretty much the last place she would want to be. As such, Anger is so fed up with the “antithetical” ways of life in “The Golden City” that he finally snaps and calls it “San Fran Stink Town” as he takes the wheel on “reasoning” by planting the idea in Riley’s head that they should just take a bus back to Minnesota. Which, of course, Riley can’t go through with.
At the end of Inside Out, it isn’t that Riley has “warmed” to SF, per se, so much as surrendered to the reality that he who controls the purse strings (i.e., one’s parents) controls your living situation. Even so, perhaps in Inside Out 2, Riley will have come to understand the value, as a “too cool for everything” teen, of living in a more sophisticated metropolis (though the naysayers will keep mentioning homeless people as a reason it’s not) than whatever bumfuck town in Minnesota she crawled out of. Maybe Bloomington (home to the Mall of America), like Inside Out’s director and co-writer, Pete Docter.
