The State They Live in: Lumpenproletariat and Linguistic Capital in Yannis Economides’ Films

Yannis Economides is a Greek Cypriot director who has been criticized for using graphic violence and heavy cursing in his films. This chapter focuses on his characters’ linguistic practices approaching cursing and gesturing as a linguistic habitus that constitutes, along with all other forms of capital (cultural, social, etc.), an individual’s social personality. Moreover, arguing against what critics suggest, we approach the lumpenproletariat in Economides’ films not as a stable (sub)class but as a social process that manifests itself in three ways: in its self-separation from any productive activity, the absence of a collective determination, and the instances of its spontaneous expressions.