Arnold Van Gennep Theory

Arnold van Gennep’s rite of passage theory can be applied to the film Inside Out. The theory states the threefold scheme which van Gennep presents as three stages of a rite of passage involving: separation which describes a detachment from your normal environment, liminality which entails “an inversion of normal behaviour showing a discontinuity of how things are normally meant to be,” and incorporation which gives a indication of the new role that the participants are to take on, “getting welcomed back from liminality as new people who are expected to behave differently” (Nye 2008, 147). As Riley from Inside Out grows to 12 years old, a meaningful milestone is portrayed with Riley showing significant changes from her regular emotions. After …show more content…
The theory states that “ritual actions do not only involve people in relationships with each other, the performance of rituals actually creates those relationships” (Nye 2008, 141–2). We can see this with Joy and Sadness, from Inside Out, as they go on a journey together to get back to headquarters. At the start of the journey Joy and Sadness don’t have a close relationship as Joy wants Sadness to not exist since she tells her to stay in a confined circle at all times, but as they accidently get thrown into a journey together; they build a new relationship with Joy respecting Sadness and realizing her importance. Together they try to get back to headquarters by trying to go through the personality islands but repeatedly the islands get destroyed and they have to overcome another obstacle in their journey. Throughout the obstacles, we see Joy repeatedly not listening to Sadness’s ideas even though we realize that if she had listened to her ideas then they would have succeeded. This understanding is later confirmed when trying to wake Riley up by controlling her dream Sadness realizes that the only way to wake Riley up would be to scare her and tries to tell Joy but Joy ignores Sadness and instead tries to wake Riley up by trying to excite her. By the end of the film when they get back to headquarters, Riley has realized the importance of Sadness and lets her use the control panel for a critical moment of Riley’s life. Their newly formed relationship is exemplified when a new core memory is formed which is a combination of both Joy and Sadness. By introducing this sequence of events, the film demonstrates that we should not form a view on people before getting to know them as when people perform repeated actions together they develop a stronger connection which helps them understand each other’s experiences. Therefore, Inside Out shows a development that we can unpack using Durkheim’s