Inside Out 2 has been popular among 2024 movies, and it's full of emotions, including new ones like Anxiety. She is the film’s most dynamic character. This is an understandable choice by Pixar, given how anxiety often affects people, whether in their teen years or long into adulthood. It’s a universal emotion. Because I know anxiety quite well, I loved Pixar and Disney’s depiction of the complex entity.
It made me reflect on anxiety the emotion and the character, especially her purpose in Inside Out 2. Anxiety engages in problematic behavior, but does that warrant giving her the villain label? Short answer, it’s complicated, but worth a discussion.
Warning: Inside Out 2 spoilers are ahead. Proceed with caution.
Anxiety Has Some Classic Traits Of A Pixar Villain But Doesn’t Quite Fit The Role
Anxiety doesn’t come close to some of Pixar’s greatest villains in terms of malicious intent. However, she behaves in ways fitting for a villain. For example, Anxiety tries to remove the other main emotions to ensure she can execute her plan to change Riley. She also makes her do bad things (like stealing the coach’s journal). She believes she’s doing what’s best for Riley, but that doesn’t excuse the bad deeds. Her actions also match the qualities of a dictator, at least in the simple sense of taking control and not allowing others to have opinions or take actions against her.
However, unlike some of Disney’s important villains, her actions aren’t done out of pure spite or for her needs. Additionally, Anxiety is nowhere near as dark and jaded as, say, a character like Lotso. Protecting Riley is the goal and mission. That is a noble motive, but just misguided in approach. Some villains believe they’re doing something for the good of others but it's usually based on narcissism and a need to control or prove their superiority. That’s not Anxiety.
She just wants Riley safe and happy.
Anxiety As An Emotion Can Be Villainous But It Can Also Fuel Greatness
Anxiety is one of the most emotionally damaging feelings. It can stop someone from doing things they love out of fear, hinder growth, and sometimes even change someone's personality completely. It can cause extremely harmful behavior. Too much anxiety can lead to painful emotions like depression.
However, anxiety isn’t a purely bad emotion. It has layers and some of them can be helpful when channeled correctly. Some anxiety can push people out of their comfort zone and result in major accomplishments. We see this side of it in Inside Out 2. Riley meets Val and her friends because of her worry about starting high school without her middle school friends.
Without anxiety about loneliness, she may never have attempted to make friends with them. She also performs better at hockey because she’s trying to impress the Firehawks. Riley goes too far, but the general idea of working harder isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It’s just about not working hard to the point that you start to harm yourself physically and emotionally.
Anxiety as a character and emotion have positive and negative attributes. Showing both is a true representation of the emotion.
Anxiety Does Some Bad Things In Inside Out 2 But For A Reason
As previously stated, Anxiety goes to extremes to protect Riley. However, the key takeaway is that she’s doing it to help Riley. Her actions are not because she’s this evil overlord trying to take Riley over. She kind of exhibits that behavior but unintentionally. Anxiety just completely believes that what she’s doing is necessary to help the girl.
By the end of Inside Out 2, she understands her mistakes and collaborates with the other emotions to make Riley a fully formed person with various emotions. A true villain would never work with others, because they would be so convinced they were the only ones who knew what was right.
A true villain would also not learn from their mistakes and work to save someone. Anxiety only becomes an antagonist briefly out of being overwhelmed with worry. It can happen to even the purest emotions.
She’s Just Another Version Of Fear
Fear is my favorite Inside Out emotion, so of course he would have the insight to know that Anxiety is kind of just him, but a little weirder. At her core, Anxiety is another form of fear. As an emotion, it’s rooted in attempting to prevent a person from engaging in behavior that can harm them.
Anxiety wants to protect Riley from becoming an outcast, and fears the repercussions if Riley doesn’t fit in with the Firehawks. Everything she does comes from that place. One of Inside Out 2’s most memorable scenes is when Anxiety has the workers in the pillow fort come up with nightmare scenarios for Riley.
She genuinely thinks worrying Riley is the best way to keep her safe. Fear is a calmer version of Anxiety. Yes, fear can be irrational but it comes from knowledge of things to fear, like monsters and fire. Anxiety is a bit more irrational and fears come from more of a place of worrying about things that may or may not happen, how things can affect Riley’s future, and more socially damaging things like social isolation.
Fear worries about bears while Anxiety worries about not doing well in school and losing all career prospects. They’re not the same but they have some of the same roots.
If Anxiety Can Be Seen As A Villain In Inside Out 2, Then So Can Joy In Inside Out
Many could label Anxiety the villain because she tries to take over Riley. She pushes her agenda on Riley and doesn’t allow anyone else to have control. Sound familiar? Yeah, because that’s basically how Joy acts in Inside Out.
She believes she knows what’s best for Riley, which is why she tries to keep Sadness away from Riley’s control board. She doesn’t realize yet that Riley needs to experience all her emotions. Anxiety must learn in Inside Out 2 that Anxiety can’t be the leading emotion. It causes too much destruction.
Joy must lead but the other emotions need to remain a part of Riley’s core. Joy and Anxiety go through a similar journey in both films. It’s just that we always know that Joy is the main character so it’s easy to know her behavior isn’t villainous. Anxiety is new, so the audience already enters a little wary of her because of unfamiliarity.
However, Anxiety and Joy behave similarly, and both must learn to understand the necessity of the spectrum of emotions.
Inside Out As A Film Series Doesn’t Villainize Any Emotions
One of the main messages of the first Inside Out is that all emotions are necessary. A person cannot experience joy without sadness. Joy tries to create a utopian world of emotions for Riley by only giving her happiness. She learns how that hinders Riley’s emotional development.
Inside Out 2 kind of has the same message. Therefore, Riley needs every emotion, no emotion can be seen as good or bad. They’re all part of the complex functions of experiencing life. They’re all necessary to be a human.
So, anxiety should never be viewed as purely something bad or villainous. It’s not in her identity.
Inside Out 2’s box office success means that it’s highly likely that we’ll see Anxiety, Joy, Sadness, and other emotions return in a future movie. I would love to see how Anxiety evolves and how new emotions cause havoc but then learn to work together.
Inside Out 2 is currently playing in theaters nationwide.
