From Kingdom to Household: A Sociological Study of ‘Vaulting Ambition’ in Twenty-first-century India Through Joji

Abstract

The psychosocial conception of ambition as one of the principal instigators of human action constitutes one of the central concepts across the disciplines of sociology, psychology and economics. However, while it has mostly been situated in Western contexts and is often associated with the concept of anomie, as reflected in the works of Emile Durkheim and Robert Merton, the concept is also of increasing importance in the developing economies of South Asia, especially in the context of India, which contains the largest population of youth, all eager to attain materialistic success. Alongside academic endeavours to further this understanding, Indian cinema has also established itself as a site to further these discussions, with several films attempting to represent this issue and its larger implications. Amongst these is the recently released Malayalam psychological thriller Joji (2021) , directed by Dileesh Pothan, inspired by William Shakespeare’s Macbeth (1606) , set against the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic. In this context, the present article critically delineates the sociological causes and implications of unchecked materialistic ambition in the film, arguing that the film must be read as a text of sociological import. The study proceeds through a qualitative analysis of the film’s titular and supporting characters to explore its links to social and ethical deviancy through Robert Merton’s framework of social structures and anomie. Subsequently, by treating the film as a cinematic microcosmic reflection of twenty-first-century Indian society, the article discusses the larger implications of ‘vaulting ambition’, juxtaposed with the rise of hyper-individualistic tendencies in a society that has primarily been structured in terms of larger, close-knit familial formations. Finally, the study argues that the way forward is to attain greater knowledge of our own selves through guidance from our sources of traditional wisdom, as encapsulated in the dārśanic systems of India.