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

alleges. 102 So, through the misfortunes that the characters must overcome and the
hilarious ways they find to solve them, we also recognise the misfortunes that the
population suffers in their day to day lives. As an example of this, in an episode of La
Familia Burrón, Regino and Briagoberto Memelas, a town cacique and a friend of the
Burrón family, go out partying and get into trouble in a cabaret. When the police arrive,
one of the policeman asks his chief: ‘¿Entramos repartiendo patines y macanazos?’, 103 a
statement that criticises the violence of the police. Regino and Briagoberto are jailed
and the last caption of the comic reads: ‘Aunque la señora Burrón recibe pronto el aviso
que su marido se encuentra en el bote, nada puede hacer por no contar con dinero. Don
Briago no supo cómo perdió su cartera durante las “investigaciones”.’ 104 The situation
should be understood as humorous, otherwise we would feel stress on behalf of the
characters, but we are acquainted with the events: the abuse and dishonesty of the
authorities. In this case, to witness the comic characters suffering the abuses sets us
apart from that reality, even if we have suffered from this abuse ourselves. We find
pleasure either by finding that someone else lives the same situation and overcomes it,
or simply by forgetting that we ourselves suffer abuse at the hands of the authorities in
our daily lives. Either way, humour works as a defence mechanism 105 and helps prevent
us from ‘being overtaken by the fearfulness of the situation’. 106 Finally, as discussed in
chapter one, after laughing about a problem that concerns us we are more able to face it
and perhaps find a solution, or a way to live with it!
Another mechanism of humour that we discussed previously was superiority.
We understood this mechanism in two different ways, one related with the idea of
102
Zupancic, ‘The “Concrete Universal” and…’, p. 181.
103
La Familia Burrón, 17171, p.32.
104
Ibid., p. 34.
105
Freud, El chiste y su relación… p. 240.
106
McGhee, Humor. Its Origin… p. 232.
113