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

gaining a sense of victory over them. In the story of La Familia Burrón in which the
wealthy Tinoco’s family is robbed, Mr Titino Tinoco calls the police as soon as he
notices the crime. When the chief of police answers the phone, he is at his desk eating a
burger and drinking a soft drink giving little importance to the crime. We might think
that Mr Tinoco phoned at a bad time, when the policeman was having his lunch, but
everything in the frame has a reason for being there. In this case, the elements in the
frame are pointing out the police chief’s lack of professionalism. This is reinforced after
Mr Tinoco describes the robbery and informs the police he knows of no suspects and
complains that the police have no suspect. The policeman replies: ‘¡En la torre! Yo creí
que nos señalaría a algunos sospechosos. En realidad, vamos a chambiar un chorro’, 124
which expresses unwillingness to do his job or achieving results.
A similar image appears in the episode previously described when Bella Bellota
is looking for Ruperto in different prisons. She speaks with the head of the jail, a
policeman who is playing tick tack toe by himself. 125 The exaggeration and incongruity
here are the idea of an adult policeman playing this children’s game by himself while
working. However, beyond the absurdity is the intention to insult all policemen, through
generalisation and to point out that the police were unprofessional. As we have seen, the
characteristics and the mechanisms of humour in both examples are the same, and
provide the same benefits to the reader.
Differences are funny
When I discussed the superiority theory in chapter one, I mentioned that we also laugh
about those characters that we think are different, since we consider ourselves above
124 La Familia Burrón, 17191, p. 22.
125 La Familia Burrón, 17164, p. 15.
119