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@article{196153,
        author = {M. Kiruba Angelin and Dr. Paul T. Benziker},
        title = {Performing Resilience: Masculinity and Mobility in Soorarai Pottru},
        journal = {International Journal of Innovative Research in Technology},
        year = {2026},
        volume = {12},
        number = {no},
        pages = {88-93},
        issn = {2349-6002},
        url = {https://ijirt.org/article?manuscript=196153},
        abstract = {This article examines the performance of masculinity and the politics of mobility in Soorarai Pottru, directed by Sudha Kongara. Situating the film within post-liberalization India, the study argues that the narrative constructs a hybrid neoliberal masculine subject which performs resilience through emotional vulnerability, entrepreneurial ambition and institutional resistance. Drawing from R.W. Connell’s theory of hegemonic masculinity, Arjun Appadurai’s concept of the “capacity to aspire” and cultural studies approaches to representation, the paper conducts a critical textual analysis of narrative structure, characterization, visual grammar and sound design over the movie. Unlike conventional Tamil commercial cinema that vaporizes invincible hypermasculinity, ‘Soorarai Pottru’ foregrounds humiliation, financial precarity and affective breakdown as central to masculine self-making. The protagonist’s mobility is not merely geographical or economic but symbolic—negotiating caste-coded exclusion, bureaucratic gatekeeping and corporate hegemony. The film reframes aspiration as collective struggle rather than individual triumph, thereby complicating neoliberal narratives of meritocracy. The article proposes the concept of “aspirational resilience” to describe this cinematic reconfiguration of masculinity, where vulnerability becomes performative strength within commercial film grammar. By analyzing how spectacle, realism and melodrama intersect, the study contributes to global debates on masculinity, neoliberal subjectivity, and South Asian popular cinema.},
        keywords = {.},
        month = {March},
        }