The image of a devil and an angel upon each shoulder, whispering persuasively into
opposing ears as conscience and temptation wrestle for mastery, is a simple but highly
effective visual device that has delighted children and adults across the cartoon decades.
Perhaps it references the temptation of Jesus in the desert (although here the devil and
angel are in series rather than in parallel) or the scales of the Cross, with repentance and
mockery, truth and lies, to Jesus’ right and left, speaking as much to us as to our Lord.
Internal conflict is distilled, personified, externalised; but it is also personalised because,
ultimately, it’s what’s between those ears that matters. Whether Tom and Jerry, Popeye,
Homer Simpson or SpongeBob, each reacts differently as the angel and the devil exploit
their strengths and weaknesses, drawing out those oh-so-lovable personality traits.

The nature of personality has likewise been ably depicted on screen. In Pixar’s 2015
animated film Inside Out, Riley’s thoughts and actions are governed by a traffic light of five
jostling anthropomorphised emotions: Anger, Disgust, Sadness, Fear and Joy. They steer her
from within like a runaway ship around the icebergs of adolescence, just as they steer many
kids around vegetables – except joy that is. (Parents, pay a visit to our local grocer Root
Down and discover a whole new range of vegetables that your kids won’t eat!) In the
sequel, Joy is further outnumbered as Anxiety, Envy, Embarrassment and Ennui climb
aboard. This harks back to former times when temperaments were ascribed to an imbalance
in the four humours: blood, phlegm, yellow bile and black bile (excellent material for
another sequel, surely). Inside Out is true to life in that our emotions can be very difficult to
control; they have, so to speak, a mind of their own, one that is unique in each of us, a
tightly intertwined combination of genetics and life experience that defines our personality.
Sadness or joy at another’s misfortune, anger or ennui at injustice and cruelty, daffodil or
chocolate egg?

At Pentecost, we may ask how an animator might depict the Holy Spirit. It’s a difficult one
because the Spirit is incorporeal – other than the descending dove, we read of physical
forces, of flames and rushing wind. The Bible gives us these images and we recognise them
all these years later, in very different times, because they are universally familiar. I suspect
that if an animator were to tackle this challenge anew, the answer would be beyond reach,
neither upon shoulder nor beside ears, as the Spirit is, in truth, too diverse and nuanced to
be abbreviated for one and all, the inadequacies of everyday language (but with a deep nod
to Piers Linley) and imagery exposed. After all, the Bible depicts the reception of the Spirit,
its nature undisclosed. That remains a personalised gift in the opening. An individual
mystery.

Colin Davey