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This paper expands Clifford Geertz’s idea of “deep play” as a play with high stakes to reveal the emotional and psychological repercussions of the deep entanglement with play, through a reading of Vetrimaaran’s Aadukalam (2011). Aadukalam presents cockfighting as a ritual and a spectacle but also reveals the dark underbelly of cockfighting culture. A game that ceases to be entertainment and extends into questions of pride, honour, skill, and belonging is bound to have dire consequences. This paper argues the games become violent expressions of masculinity and male sexual desire, an element that Geertz alludes to but does not discuss. As the rooster becomes the object of labour, care, honour, and virility, power begins to operate through it; the desire for power destabilises the structural unity of cockfighting as a collective sport. At the core of the film is the shifting and deteriorating bond between Pettaikaran and Karuppu where a relationship rooted in loyalty and devotion ultimately challenges social hierarchy, thus revealing the tragic element of the game.
Mr. Ashish Kumar. “Blood, Pride, and the Rooster: Deep Play and Masculine Honour in Aadukalam (2011).” The Criterion: An International Journal in English, vol. 17, no. 4, August 2026, pp. 940-955. DOI, https://doi.org/10.66376/criterion.v17.n4.58.
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