Leticia Neria PhD thesis - Research@StAndrews:FullText ...

humour can be used as a safety valve to say what we repress socially because it ‘frees us
from the chain of our perceptual, conventional, logical, linguistic and moral systems’. 74
The image of the diputados is a good example; their abilities in power are described
with unfavourable, but enjoyable, criticism. In Los Agachados some characters are
discussing the failure of the Mexican Revolution, since it did not bring the social
welfare that was expected. A man is reading aloud from a newspaper: ‘México tiene
casi 10 millones de desocupados’, and a caption next to the image adds ‘(sin contar
diputados)’. 75 This can be considered an incongruity, since the first sentence refers to
the unemployed, and the punchline is a kind of misunderstanding about the meaning of
the word, assuming that ‘desocupado’ means ‘idle’. However, besides the ‘possible
confusion’ this is also a way to share what we think about the diputados.
In a different issue of Los Agachados, Professor Hans, the German scientist who
lives in Chayotitlán, is explaining what calories are, and he says that we expend calories
with the physical activities we undertake every day. The comment is illustrated with a
clipping of a man in black and white on a vintage bicycle saying: ‘Hasta un diputado se
desgasta, aunque no lo crean’. 76 The image is incongruous by itself because it is
something unexpected inserted in the narrative, but the comment about the diputados,
besides being illogical and inappropriate, can work as a safety valve to express an
opinion which would not be done publicly, namely, to point out their lack of activity.
Moreover the quotation is exaggerated since it is obvious that even the laziest person –
and by saying this I am not referring to the diputados, burns calories. But as can be
seen, with the combination of these mechanisms of humour we are describing what we
think of the diputados in a playful, and harmless, way.
74 Harvey Mindess quoted by Raskin, Semantic Mechanism… p. 38.
75 Los Agachados, 282, p. 21.
76 Los Agachados, 51, p. 12.
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