Why did Riley's hockey team hail her after she missed the shot and lost the game?
In Inside Out, the emotion Joy views Riley's hockey "core memory", which she thinks is a purely happy memory of Riley's hockey team the Prairie Dogs tossing her up on their shoulders and celebrating her, presumably for a victory. The emotion Sadness tells her that in fact Riley missed the shot and lost the game. Later Joy views it again in the pivotal and climactic scene, and realizes that it is actually a sad memory, and that Riley's sadness emotions are actually a healthy and necessary reaction to express and to outwardly signal her pain, which should not be surpressed. It caused her parents to comfort her, and her team hailed her.
I can understand parents comforting a hurting child. But I don't really understand a team of 8 year olds having the maturity to think to comfort the player who lost the game. And since they all lost, as a team, wouldn't the whole team need cheering up? Why single out Riley? And if they did have the maturity (or their coach put them up to it) to try to lift one teammate's spirits, celebrating and cheering and tossing as if they had actually won seems like an extremely inappropriate method, more likely to worsen her feelings of failure than relieve. Denying reality doesn't seem like a healthy response to disappointment?
It doesn't seem like thing that would happen, and if it did happen it doesn't seem like a thing that would become a happy memory. Have I misunderstood this scene? What is happening?
Best Answer
Well, Joy realizing that a sad memory of an ice hockey game turning into a happy one because her parents and friends consoled her.
The aim is to flesh out the fact that sadness is to induce empathy in others, prompting them to reach out to Riley when she is emotionally overwhelmed and needs help.
As for her teammates cheering her and hailing her, I think that the coach put them up to it. It seems very mature of 8 year olds cheering after a loss.
Pictures about "Why did Riley's hockey team hail her after she missed the shot and lost the game?"
Why did Riley quit hockey?
When Joy, Sadness, and the Core Memories are taken out of Headquarters, Riley is unable to play hockey at the first tryouts in San Francisco. This causes her to become angry and quit, causing Hockey Island to fall into the Memory Dump.What is Riley sad in inside out?
When it is time for Riley and her parents to move to San Francisco, Riley becomes sad and misses her life in Minnesota. Riley starts to go from joyous and happy to sentimental and a bit depressed, on account of she misses the good old days in Minnesota.Why Does Riley Have Male and Female Emotions!?
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Answer 2
I received this scene as kids hailing not her fail per se but the fact that she is not ideal.
Joy controlling Riley's emotions and view on memories was creating traits of narcissism. I make only good things, I never fail, bad things that happen to me are always someone else fault and so on.
So the kids reaction was, from movie making point of view, a homage to "Freaks" where they are chanting "one of us" when they welcome person who is broken is some way and not perfect.
Also the sadness from that memory was lesson that winning is not that important but the joy of being with friends, spending time together and being a part of a team (so again opposite of narcissism).
Answer 3
It could be that Riley took it the hardest out of all the teammates. She has compulsory need to not let people down because at the time, joy was her greatest strength. When her teammates saw that she was so upset about it, naturally the team came together to make her feel better. Just like how people console people who are down with jokes and compliments, the team showed Riley compassion as if to say you didn't let us down.
Answer 4
It's quite possible that the coach/parents established an environment of unconditional support and taught the kids to lift each other up, especially in the midst of failure.
There's a pretty similar real life example of this found in this video where a young kid (5ish years old) is struggling to break a board. The child is encouraged by the teacher to keep trying even when the kid breaks down crying. Once the kid finally manages to break the board, the other classmates swarm the kid to applaud him in his eventual success. It's not a 1:1 comparison since there was success, but there was a lot of support leading up to it. I find it likely that Riley's team has a similar ethos.
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