'This sperm hits the bullseye': Bollywood, youth and male (im)potency as a neoliberal game. Issue 1 (1st November 2020)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Chakrabarti, Baidurya
• Is Part Of: Studies in South Asian film & media. Volume 11:Issue 1(2020)
• Page Start: 71
• Page End: 85
• Publication Date: 2020-11-01
• Subjects: Mass media -- South Asia -- Periodicals; 791.40954
• DOI: 10.1386/safm_00020_1
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1756-4921

Abstract

This article, by closely examining the trajectory of the upcoming Bollywood star Ayushmann Khurrana, tries to unravel the constitutive fantasies that provide a significant degree of coherence to his star-image. Through a close textual reading, the article aligns these fantasies with the diurnal realities of neoliberal India. In these fantasies, the male protagonist is found to be (a) the privileged embodiment of a surplus/lack that comes to signify the 'thing' called the modern, but (b) the man and his sociality is not prepared yet to accept this 'thing', thus triggering comedy; it is only in romantic conjugation with (c) a working woman can this excess charge of the modern be resolved within the narratives. Using psychoanalytic insights, the article unpacks these fantasies as ones involving both a crisis and an ultimately infantile reaction to it.