- “Crying helps me slow down and obsess over the weight of life's problems.”
- ―Sadness to Joy
Sadness is the deuteragonist of the 2015 Disney•Pixar animated feature film Inside Out and one of the two tritagonists (alongside Anger) of its 2024 sequel, as one of the emotions inside the mind of Riley Andersen.
Background[]
Sadness came into existence after Riley's first 33 seconds of her life. There, she met Joy. When she caused baby Riley to cry, Joy pushed her aside and fixed the situation. Sadness was only used whenever Riley threw tantrums or did not get her way.
Official Description[]
- None of the other Emotions really understand what Sadness' role is. Sadness would love to be more optimistic and helpful in keeping Riley happy, but she finds it so hard to be positive. Sometimes it seems like the best thing to do is just lie on the floor and have a good cry.
Personality[]
Sadness, as her name states, is the literal embodiment of sorrow, gloom and general hurt or down feelings. She's shown to be very sensitive and melancholic out of all the emotions, and is prone to tears very easily when distraught or hurt, crying out literal sprinkles of tears when weeping. Sadness also complains a lot and has a tendency to never want to walk or do anything when she's "too sad", much to Joy's frustration. Despite her slowness, this is often a benefit for her, since she likes to observe and read, Sadness is also smarter, has more common sense, and is more pragmatic than the others, which proved expedient in the journey through Riley's mind, such as when she kept trying to warn Joy at the dangers of taking Bing Bong's "shortcut" through Abstract Thought, which was really a dangerous place to go through (though Joy did not listen at the time), and when she also suggested scaring Riley to wake her up (but Joy thought that giving her a fun dream would wake her up, which it did not).
In the first film, her emotion is almost never used because Joy did not understand Sadness nor want Riley to ever be sad, even when she needs to be. Because of this, Joy treated Sadness badly through out the majority of the film, but Sadness still yearned to earn her place among the other emotions, even though the others did not believe Sadness had a purpose in the mind and almost always prevented her from trying. As a result, she was very insecure and shy, and often felt ashamed for who she was, feeling like she was a burden who only made things worse. This belief reached it's boiling point when she felt genuinely hurt by Joy's abandonment because "Riley needs to be happy", which made Sadness felt like she was truly useless and unneeded and spiraled into despair.
Despite her pessimistic disposition, shyness, sarcastic demeanor, and negative attitude, she is very considerate and compassionate toward others; when Bing Bong was sad about losing his rocket, she sympathizes with him and lets him reveal his true feelings, which makes him feel much better. Unknowingly, this is because of Sadness's true purpose - she helps Riley come to terms with the situations that hurt her and move on. When Sadness is requested to take control after Riley's sorrow becomes evident, she is able to let Riley express her true feelings and helps Riley find happiness at last. After the other emotions finally trust and accept Sadness, not only does Joy start treating her better, but Sadness gains more confidence in herself as well, now that she has finally found her place.
Despite her personality, Sadness is actually a fan of romance-related things. This can be seen when she smiles when she sees the Imaginary Boyfriend and Tragic Vampire Romance Island. This appears to be one of the few things that make her happy.
Physical appearance[]
Sadness's appearance is based off a teardrop, thus leading to her rather rounded and chubby figure. She is roughly the same height as Disgust, with light blue skin, royal-blue eyes, sparkly, sapphire blue shoulder-length hair kept into an asymmetrical bob, and small buck teeth.
She wears a pair of rather large, very dark purple round glasses, a pale gray turtleneck sweater, navy-blue pants and slippers.
In the sequel, she is shown wearing a night robe that matches the color of her sweater.
Appearances[]
Inside Out[]
Sadness first appears at Riley's birth less than a minute after Riley's first emotion, Joy. Joy presses a button that makes baby Riley smile. Sadness makes Riley cry, but Joy pushes her out of the way and makes Riley happy again. Due to Joy's obsession of keeping Riley happy since then, she treats Sadness poorly. As a matter of fact, the other emotions tend to exclude Sadness as well.
They won't let her take the wheel at all, no matter how sad the situation needs to be. When Riley moves to San Francisco in California, everything starts to go from bad to worse; Riley's dad doesn't have time for her, their new house is terrible, they only serve broccoli pizza, and the moving van won't come for weeks. Sadness thinks that this situation is a good time to handle Riley's problems, but Joy still doesn't let her get involved.
Sadness is too sad to walk.
The next day at Riley's new school, Joy tells Sadness to stay out of everything and stay in a small white circle Joy made of chalk, so Riley won't be sad. When Riley is called up to introduce herself, Joy makes her talk about the good old times in Minnesota, but Sadness accidentally causes her to cry and miss living there. The film reveals that Sadness was touching a memory that was originally positive and made a new Core Memory that is a sad one. The other emotions begin to panic as the sad core memory rolls into the core memory chamber. Joy immediately takes the core memory out and decides to throw it away.
Sadness tries to stop Joy, but in the chaos, Sadness, Joy, and the core memories get accidentally sucked up into a tube and they end up in Long Term Memory. Joy decides to find a way to get back to Headquarters with Sadness as her guide. During the long journey, they run into Riley's old imaginary friend from toddlerhood, Bing Bong, who knows a way back to Headquarters. Joy decides to have him show them the way back. Bing Bong suggests they take the Train of Thought and Bing Bong leads them to a shortcut, which actually is the dangerous Abstract Thought.
Sadness tries to warn them, but she is ignored. They manage to get out just in time thanks to Sadness' knowledge, but they miss the train. Bing Bong leads them through Imagination Land, where they see that many of the childish aspects of Riley's personality are being removed, including Bing Bong's rocket that is sent down to the Memory Dump. Bing Bong sits down sadly and Joy tries to get him to stop by being goofy, but it doesn't work at all. Instead of trying to cheer him up, Sadness decides to sympathize with him and let him express his emotions. In just a minute or so, Bing Bong feels better. Joy is shocked that Sadness could solve Bing Bong's problems without cheering him up.
By the time they finally reach Train of Thought, Riley goes to sleep, which always stops the train. Joy decides to wake Riley up to get the train moving again. Sadness suggests they try to use a scary dream to wake Riley, but Joy is abhorred by the idea and decides to use the complete opposite. Joy's dream, however, has no desired effect, until Sadness accidentally rips off their dog costume, which causes the dream to become disturbing, which has the desired effect. But due to the ruckus, guards try to apprehend them. They take Bing Bong and lock him in the Subconscious along with Riley's greatest fears. Sadness and Joy rescue him from Jangles the Clown and decide to use him to wake up Riley. Jangles' rampage causes Riley to wake up, allowing the trio to board the train to headquarters.
Sadness at the controls.
On the train, Joy thanks Sadness for solving their problem, and as they look upon one of the Core Memories, Sadness recalls, how in that memory Riley missed a hockey goal and felt bad about it. Suddenly, Honesty Island collapses like three other islands before it, and the collapse causes the train to be wrecked. They learn that Riley is running away. A recall tube is revealed and they decide to use it, but unfortunately, the tube is too tight; it would cause Riley's Core Memories to go sad if Sadness foes with Joy. Joy decides to leave Sadness behind and return to HQ, but her plan backfires when she falls into the Memory Dump, and Bing Bong comes after her. When Joy looks at all of the forgotten memories, she looks at the Core Memory Sadness talked about more closely and realizes that Riley's problem then was solved because Sadness was the one in control during that time, and Joy finally sees that she went way overboard with trying to keep Riley happy. Joy makes it out of the chasm, but Bing Bong sacrifices himself and fades into oblivion. Joy tries to get Sadness to come back with her, but Sadness thinks Riley doesn't need her and just cries her eyes out and runs away from Joy. Soon enough, Joy is flung into the air and grabs Sadness, and the two make it back to HQ, just as Riley is about to run away. The others tell Joy to handle Riley's problem, but Joy says that it's now up to Sadness to save Riley. After Sadness successfully removes the idea, the console becomes operative again. Joy hands the core memories to Sadness, who turns them all sad and places them in the core memory holder. At first, Sadness is unsure and nervous because she has never done this before, but Joy assures her otherwise. Riley comes home, and the sad memories help her tell her parents how she really feels about her new life in San Francisco and that she misses Minnesota.
As Riley hugs her parents while still sad, Sadness takes Joy to take part in the moment, and as both of them operate the console, a new core memory materializes - it's both yellow and blue (which creates Melancholy), creating a bigger, cooler, greater, and updated Family Island. Joy and Sadness hold hands on the new core memory and, when Riley turns 12, they finally become a team and the best of friends.
Riley's First Date?[]
Sadness and the other emotions appear in this new short, where they help Riley when her friend Jordan (a boy Riley met at the end of the film) comes over for a visit.
Inside Out 2[]
Sadness is more accepted in the sequel. Her first appearance on screen is accompanied by Joy saying, "You know her, you love her, the one, the only--that's right, Sadness is in the house!" Joy doesn't restrain her and keep her from controlling the console unless it can affect people around Riley, as they all kept Sadness from making Riley cry in the car in front of her friends and parents.
Joy asks Sadness to go to the Belief System with her. At first, she agreed only to take it back seconds later, worrying that she might break the belief system considering that it's only newly implemented. Sadness eventually agreed to come along after Joy convinced her, saying, "Where I go, you go." For the first time, Sadness sees the belief system, plucking out a string of belief that sounded out the words "I'm kind", much to Sadness' delight.
After the four new emotions arrive, Anxiety bottles the original emotions including Sadness after they got in the way of her plans.
After they escape the Vault, they went on into Long-Term memory to reach Riley's Back of the Mind. Joy becomes confused as Long Term Memory expands, becoming unfamiliar to them. Sadness cries at the thought of the Long-Term Memory's vastness and Joy tried to cheer her up by forcing her to smile.
Joy trusts Sadness to climb up a recall tube into the Headquarters so that Sadness can turn it on when the other four emotions reach Riley's old Sense of Self. As she climbs up the tube, Envy recalls every memory of music that Riley has, the memory orbs forcefully pulled Sadness with it and into the headquarters. As Anxiety, Envy, and Embarrassment try to find a cool enough band to tell the Firehawks, Sadness successfully retreats into the mind manual library where she attempts to hide herself by towering the mind manuals.
Eventually, Embarrassment got suspicious over the towering books that suddenly appeared, shocking both of them. Sadness tells Embarrassment to not tell on Anxiety. Embarrassment walks away. Just as Sadness prepares for the worst, to her surprise, Embarrassment helps her hide by getting more books and completing her hideout made out of books.
While Anxiety attempts to convince Riley to peep into the coach's red book, Sadness silently disapproves of Riley's actions. She steals Ennui's phone careful not to wake her. As Riley saw her name and realizes that the coach thinks that she's not ready, Sadness controls the console through Ennui's phone and lets her cry. To Anxiety's surprise, she tells Ennui where her phone is, causing Ennui to freak out over her missing phone. Envy and Ennui try to find sadness to no avail. Anxiety sneaks into their bedroom to see a blue light under Sadness' blanket and she takes away the phone from her.
Sadness is then suspended in the air with a bucket so she doesn't tamper with Anxiety's plans. Shortly after Embarrassment realizes that Anxiety's plan is falling apart, he secretly releases Sadness from her bucket so she can activate the Protection System to send Joy and the original emotions back to headquarters. She fails as Anxiety destroys the Protection System.
She wasn't able to do anything about Anxiety's emotional whirlwind until Joy and the other emotions come back, attempting to remove the Sense of Self created by Anxiety, and replace it with the previous one, but Riley does not respond. At that moment, Joy realized that she had been doing what Anxiety tried to do by deciding what Riley should believe in, she removed the old Sense of Self and allowed a new one to grow to give Riley a better personality.
In the end, Sadness and the four new emotions peacefully coexist.
Video games[]
Disney Infinity[]
Sadness appears in Disney Infinity's third installment as a playable character.
Disney Heroes: Battle Mode[]
Sadness in Disney Heroes: Battle Mode
Sadness is a playable character in Disney Heroes: Battle Mode. Sadness is a Front-Line Tank role hero. Sadness can put enemies in circle of sadness to debuff them, she also can leap on her raincloud to damage enemies, and she also can wail during fights to damage and silence nearby enemies. Whenever an enemy attacks her they are applied with a Slow debuff. Sadness has unique buff 'Sorrow' which allows her to increase armor and reality on herself and her allies.
Sadness has friendship campaigns with Eeyore and Joy. She also has friendship campaign with Disgust.
Disney Parks[]
Sadness and Joy at Hong Kong Disneyland.
Joy and Sadness have a meet-and-greet area near the Art of Animation exhibitions at Hong Kong Disneyland for a limited time during the coolest summer ever event in 2015. They are currently the only Inside Out characters to appear at Disney Parks. The two emotions are currently seen at Epcot with Baymax in the Character Spot. Joy and Sadness also make a brief cameo during Happily Ever After, and multiple scenes from Inside Out are seen during Together Forever: A Pixar Nighttime Spectacular.
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- According to Pete Docter, her appearance is based on that of a teardrop.
- This can be seen in Abstract Thought, as during the fourth stage (non-figurativity), Joy and Sadness were reduced to a shape and color - Sadness was a blue teardrop and Joy was a yellow star.
- Sadness also drew inspiration from Rachel Dratch's SNL character Debby Downer as well as Wednesday Addams from The Addams Family.
- Sadness could resemble a nerd, with her thinking she doesn't fit in, being fat, being shy, and with her big round glasses and sweater.
- Even though Sadness is mostly seen as shy and mournful, there are several occasions when she is seen smiling, proving that emotions can express more feelings than their own representation.
- In the "Meet Phyllis Smith" video, there is a scene where Sadness falls flat on Anger's face.
- Sadness is the sixth female deuteragonist of Pixar, the first five being are the Princess Atta from A Bug's Life, Dory from Finding Nemo, Elastigirl from The Incredibles, EVE from WALL-E, and Queen Elinor from Brave, and next being Cruz Ramirez from Cars 3, Bo Peep from Toy Story 4, 22 from Soul, Ming Lee from Turning Red, Izzy Hawthorne from Lightyear, and Anxiety from Inside Out 2 (released nine years later).
- In an early draft of the film, Sadness wasn't originally going to get lost with Joy in Riley's mind, but instead, her role would have been given to Fear.
- Sadness' true mission of empathy is hinted throughout the first film:
- In the first scene when Riley is born and cries for the first time, this is a common signal for babies to alert their parents that they need something, such as a diaper change or food.
- When Joy is bluntly talking about Sadness in the prologue, the scenes of Riley crying shows she ripped her teddy bear, dropped her ice cream, doesn't want to leave the store, and is upset at going home, the first two being hints that something is wrong and she needs help, with the last two signaling that her parents might have forgotten something at the store.
- While most of Riley's memories were happy, Sadness was able to turn them sad. This is a clue that Riley is unable to keep her homesickness suppressed and she can't be happy all the time.
- When Riley starts crying in front of the whole class after Sadness turns another memory sad, the students stare at her, not with confusion, but with visible concern that she's homesick. And when Joy and Sadness get sucked out of Headquarters, the teacher understands her sadness and how hard it is about moving.
- At the same time Riley began crying in class, the console became inaccessible for Joy, but not for Sadness. This also hints at Sadness being the only one who was able to eject the idea to run away when Riley was close to leaving.
- Sadness feels sorry for Bing Bong losing his rocket to the memory dump as a sign Riley was getting older.
- Phyllis Smith, Sadness' voice actress, was chosen for the role after Jonas Rivera, Inside Out's producer, noticed her performance in the 2011 film Bad Teacher.
- Sadness is a fan of tragic romance stories and points to Tragic Vampire Romance Island as her personal favorite.
- Sadness' personality is similar to that of Eeyore from the Winnie the Pooh franchise, due to both of them being shy and the gloomiest of their respective friends.
- Coincidentally, Sadness and Eeyore have yellow friends, Pooh and Joy, who try to cheer them up.
- Sadness and Eeyore also have a friendship campaign together in the Disney mobile app Disney Heroes: Battle Mode.
- Sadness is the only one among Riley's three original female emotions who doesn't regularly wear a dress.
- During the production of Inside Out 2, Phyllis Smith came out of retirement to reprise her role as Sadness. But since she was in Missouri, she told Pixar to find a recording studio, so that she can record her lines in Missouri instead of Los Angeles.
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