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

manner, but also our super-ego lets us know that we should not be concerned about
police dishonesty because in this particular case, we are not the ones who are suffering.
In any case, the policemen in these comics are ridiculous and do not deserve fear, only
laughter. They may have power, but in these images they are inferior because their
behaviour is grotesque.
During the period we are studying, an important social issue was the violence
and repression that many suffered. As we saw in chapter two, the country did not have a
free press, and journalists were persecuted and silenced, sometimes violently. There
were few public channels to discuss this, so comic books and films were a means to
open discussion. In Los Agachados, Don Ruco is asking about Nopalzin’s whereabouts
because he had a nightmare in which Nopalzin was kidnapped by court officers. When
Profe Gumaro hears about Nopalzin’s dreamlike abduction he says: ‘¿Desde cuándo
Reuter Nopalzin es periodista?’ 153 Gumaro’s comment is unexpected and he is saying
something that he is not allowed to discuss publicly: that the journalists suffered
persecution. We laugh because the situation described is scary, and ‘we often laugh
because we are troubled by what we laugh at, because it somehow frightens us’. 154 Our
super-ego has triumphed over the ego and has recognised that this is an act of humour.
We should not be scared, but rather should enjoy the insult.
As Freud suggested, the ego is a severe master. It points to situations and
characters which should concern us. Nonetheless, the super-ego embraces the ego by
convincing it that the situation is a harmless act of humour. Perhaps afterwards we will
need to deal with the problem, but meanwhile we should realise that the issue is
presented in such a way as to deserve nothing more than a laugh. During the period
studied here, many parts of Mexican society were concerned about the lack of
153 Los Agachados, 43, p. 2.
154 Critchley, On Humour… p. 56.
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