A few days ago, the trailer for one of the upcoming (and highly anticipated) animated movies from the house of Mickey Mouse was released on Disney and Pixar's social channels: Inside Out 2. During the short video, Emotions experiences the arrival of a new colleague: Anxiety.
Inside Out, in its first chapter, brings a series of successes: the first in its genre (that of animation) to tell a story about the human mind, it won the Oscar for the best animated movie in 2016. The same new trailer previewing the second chapter reached more than 150 million views worldwide in 24 hours, marking the biggest launch of an animated trailer in the history of animated cinema.
If the first chapter struck a chord with audiences for the precise creativity with which it depicted the unconscious and subconscious, the sequel, eagerly awaited especially by GenZ, seems no less promising: it promises to depict the protagonist's adolescent phase, with the arrival of new emotions typical of this period of life, and all that the new adolescent horizons bring.
I don't know if it's just coincidence or not, but I think the introduction of the new character, Anxiety, and the role she's going to play in the movie, is worthy of further reflection, even before we know what's really going to happen.
We have all been teenagers, so we are not new to all the dynamics that this period brings. The agitation of the mind, the restlessness and even the anxiety is, in my opinion, a particularly present component in this phase; and while it is easily transformed into the adrenaline of life, a positive component of always being ready for the future, it is also, especially in recent years, becoming an increasingly relevant and present problem in our society.
Focusing on young adolescents, such as those will see in the film, a report by Unicef and the Gemelli Polyclinic in 2023 showed that 39% of the adolescents surveyed suffered from anxiety or depression, and of these, 16% presented a more pronounced and generalized global impairment, with personality changes in various psychological and psychiatric dimensions.
The university environment offers no better picture than that of adolescents: a psychological questionnaire presented by Università Statale of Milan in 2022 shows that 32% are dissatisfied with their lives and admit to suffering from performance anxiety. Just last November 16, Il Sole 24 ore reported how a similar dossier promoted by Skuola.net, with data on the mental health of young people, even mobilized a university demonstration for the "rights" of students.
The data are there and are compelling, but the causes are not always to be found in performance anxiety alone. As the first Inside Out itself showed, family plays a key role, being the safe place for every young adult. When it is far away, as in the case of out-of-towners, the ability to manage one's emotions without wanting to impose them on a distant family makes it necessary to learn to self-manage even these more psychological aspects of one's life.
Moreover, the confinement of the pandemic period amplified issues peculiar to all segments of the population, returning, once normalcy returned, a society in need of psychological help. The present is not helping the situation: the war in Ukraine, the economic crisis and the recent war in the Middle East are having a major impact on our psychological well-being. According to a report by Headway-Mental Health Index 2.0, conducted by The European House- Ambrosetti, it has emerged that the last three years have contributed to the creation of an unprecedented atmosphere of instability and uncertainty that has deeply marked the state of mental health of the population in Italy and Europe.
That aside, as a fan of animated films, and especially of the recognizable nuances that characterize Disney Pixar films, I know that linking a joyful and serene reality such as that of a product like Inside Out to such unpromising data can generate despondency. There are multiple cases of young people who go so far as to take their own lives because of moods and situations that can be traced back to anxiety, and I think it is becoming increasingly clear in the public mind that this is a problem of growing seriousness and collective concern, not just of those who suffer from it. I do not know the plot of this second chapter, but I trust it will be able to deal more tactfully and serenely with an issue that is so much in need of greater sensitivity and awareness. And who knows, this film, and the story it will tell us, may be just what so many of us need to see the light at the end of the tunnel.
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