Not Feeling It

Phantom threads of sex and politics in the most popular film of 2024.

Twenty minutes into Kelsey Mann’s Inside Out 2, the parents of the 13-year-old heroine Riley (voiced by Kensington Tallman) are driving their daughter to hockey camp. While Riley chats with her friends in the back seat, her dad (Kyle MacLachlan) waggles his eyebrows suggestively at his wife, speculating on what they might jointly get up to over the weekend with the house to themselves. Mom (Diane Lane) is having none of it, running through some no-nonsense options like clearing out the garage.

That’s about the most open hint of Eros anywhere in the film—which from one angle is unsurprising, given we’re talking about a Pixar cartoon, by definition sufficiently sanitised to suit all ages from pre-schoolers up. True, Mickey Mouse was sweet on Minnie, and Elmer Fudd went gooey whenever Bugs Bunny put on a dress and played girl bunny; but those were different times. That said, Riley herself is visibly leaving childhood behind: a pimple has sprouted on her chin, and she’s worried about how she smells (apparently with reason; as she exits the car, her mother can't resist a final warning about deodorant).