The Wholesome Pixar Family Film Inside Out 2 and the spicy Netflix comedy Big mouth have fundamentally different approaches to getting inside the minds of high school students, but their fear storylines are broadly similar and they’re both on the same wavelength when it comes to tackling the problem. Big mouth combines mature discussions about mental health with heaping helpings of dick jokes, while Inside Out 2 takes a completely genderless look at the changes that hormones bring. But both animated projects ultimately arrive at the same message about how fear is a powerful, tumultuous force that can never be banished, but can be managed with a little help from friends.
Which had the same plot better? Here’s a look at how the two tonally different stories hit the same beats — and how they serve as unlikely double-duties for adults and teens trying to cope with anxiety.
(Editorial note: Major spoilers ahead Big mouth season 4 and Inside Out 2.)
Inside Out 2 vs. Big Mouth: What Does Fear Feel Like?
Image: Netflix
The similarities between the two stories are striking. Inside Out 2‘s Fear (Maya Hawke) and Big mouthTito the Anxiety Mosquito (Maria Bamford) both first manifest to torment their respective child victims at summer camp. This happens in part because both children feel insecure in their relationships with their best friends. Riley (Kensington Tallman) has just learned that she and her best friends are going to different high schools, and she defensively withdraws from their friendship. Likewise, Nick Birch (Nick Kroll) is estranged from his best friend Andrew Glouberman (John Mulaney) after a huge fight over Nick kissing Andrew’s ex-girlfriend.
Tito the Anxiety Mosquito Appears in the Season 4 Premiere of Big moutha new addition to the show’s rogues gallery of emotions, like Depression Kitty and the Shame Wizard. (Shame was considered a new emotion for Inside Out 2(but didn’t make it.) “I’m the worst, but so are you,” Tito says as an introduction, after biting Nick.
Like many modern Disney films, the Inside Out series doesn’t really have any villains, but Anxiety does serve as an antagonist, pitted against the emotional characters from the first film. Joy (Amy Poehler) typically sits at the center of the emotional console that Riley controls, and sees herself as the hero of the story. Though she learned to make space for Sadness (Phyllis Smith) in the first film, she’s hesitant to do the same for Anxiety and Riley’s other newfound emotions, and she pushes Riley to mess with her best friends at school, even when she’d be better off listening to what the coach at hockey camp has to say.
Inside Out 2‘s approach is stronger here, because it acknowledges that anxiety can be beneficial when it helps you take useful actions — like Anxiety suggesting to Riley at the end of the film that she study for her Spanish test. But it also acknowledges that anxiety can easily degenerate into harmful catastrophic thinking. Tito is clearly malicious in her over-the-top warnings to Nick, such as “You’re going to die a virgin while the world explodes from global warming.” But Anxiety seems to genuinely believe she’s helping Riley by keeping her up all night imagining equally catastrophic scenarios. Her breakdown as she drives Riley into a panic attack is a beautiful visualization of the feeling of losing control, and the ominous swarm of buzzing fears that Tito conjures up for Nick don’t quite have the same narrative power.
Inside Out 2 vs. Big Mouth: What Does Fear Do to You?
Image: Pixar Animation Studios
In both stories, anxiety attacks the teens’ self-esteem and further damages their relationships with their best friends. Nick becomes upset when Andrew tells him he’s not a good person. Instead of making amends, he decides to ignore Andrew and hang out with his best friend from camp, Seth Goldberg (Seth Rogen). Their plans don’t work out, as Andrew and Seth bond and Nick finds himself ostracized. Nick is so fixated on this relationship that he ignores his other close friend, Jessi Glaser (Jessi Klein), and even lashes out at her when she tries to help him through a panic attack.
Fear literally attacks Riley’s sense of self, wiping out it and Riley’s core emotions. Inside out so she can take over completely. Riley pushes her best friends, Bree (Sumayyah Nuriddin-Green) and Grace (Grace Lu), away, because she feels she should cut her losses and focus on making new friends.
She continues to deny her true self at a social gathering, disowning her favorite band because the older girls she’s trying to impress think it’s childish. As Anxiety haunts her nightmares, Riley is less afraid that she’s hurt her friends’ feelings and more concerned that they’ll outperform her in the final hockey game of camp, and that she’ll look ridiculous for not joining their team. Her core belief that she’s a good person quickly gives way to a new self built around the idea “I’m not good enough.”
Both arcs show the cruelty of fear, but Big mouth pushes the subject further, specifically around the idea of physical confidence at the onset of puberty. Riley briefly worries about changing in front of other girls in the hockey camp locker room, but the subject never comes up again, as she is fixated on her goal of impressing the coach enough to make the high school hockey team. That’s understandable for a children’s film, but body image issues are central to Big mouthwhere Nick’s insecurity about the size of his penis causes him to skip showering for days, all the while simmering in a growing stench that eventually earns him the nickname “Soup.” This is the show where Maya Rudolph sing a whole song about the diversity of bodies on display during a visit to a Korean spa in Season 2.
Big mouth focuses much more on how cruel children can be, with even the odd child who had previously served as a punching bag for most of the boys at camp quickly seizing the opportunity to elevate his status by ridiculing Nick. In contrast, the girls Riley meets at camp are quick to accept her—perhaps even unrealistically so. That lack of external conflict helps to emphasize Riley’s internal turmoil, and the film still demonstrates the destructive power of fear. But Big mouth gives a better picture of its lasting effects.
Inside Out 2 vs. Big Mouth: How to Combat Fear
Image: Netflix
In both cases, the crises reach a breaking point, with the characters having a panic attack and their best friends helping them back up. Inside Out 2 offers a beautiful moment of catharsis, as Bree, Grace, and Riley take to the ice together for the camp’s big final hockey game, while Joy mans the console to Riley’s mind. It’s a refutation of Joy’s fears that she’ll have less of an impact on Riley’s life as she grows up — that final game shows just how valuable Joy still is.
Not surprising, Big mouth‘s climax is much more disgusting. Nick and Andrew reconcile as Andrew passes a bowel movement he’s been holding in all summer, and The Pretenders’ “I’ll Stand By You” plays. It lacks Inside Out 2‘s tight story, which relies on shock value and the general sense that the boys had to make amends because they’re the only ones who would fully tolerate each other.
Both Nick and Riley end their summers in better places than they began, able to accept some of their shortcomings with the help of supportive friends. Still, their fears are never truly banished. Nick is relieved to be rid of Tito, but the episode ends ominously with a swarm of mosquitoes following the bus home. Tito has remained a recurring antagonist on the series, now heading into an eighth and final season on Netflix: she continues to plague Nick, Jessi, and other characters. She’s most successfully combated with the help of the Gratitoad (Zach Galifianakis), who urges people to appreciate their friends and the other good things in their lives.
The serrated tree of self-loathing fear that has built up in Riley’s mind persists as part of her more complex sense of self. Fear must be constantly managed by the rest of Riley’s emotions, which she encourages to relax with tea and a massage chair. The film’s ending is a bit of a cop-out, as Riley seems to have gotten good news about making the high school hockey team, when a much more compelling finale would have shown her mature enough to accept failure and continue working toward her future. But with another film in the series almost guaranteed, based on Inside Out 2The series’ massive box office success will give it more opportunities to explore how fear continues to affect Riley and her development as a person.
All seven seasons of Big mouth are streaming on Netflix. Inside Out 2 is now playing in theaters.