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

Mexico City. What we suggest here is that the first system broken is the one related to
logic and plausibility. Besides, Borola’s reaction of calling Floro ‘communist’ could be
considered absurd, but as Simon Critchley proposed, humour is a kind of insider
knowledge, 166 and by knowing that communists were blamed for many problems, 167 we
enrich our analysis and understand that the author is also making fun of the use of the
word ‘communist’ as if it referred to something evil. Borola is transposing the term
‘communist’ from its political meaning to an offensive meaning, changing the frame in
which the word should be understood. In order to understand why Borola is doing this,
we need to know the Mexican reality, and how the government at that time blamed the
communists for various attacks and misfortunes that occurred throughout the country. 168
Borola will be ‘insulted’ in a similar way by a friend when, during an argument, the
woman yells: ‘Vieja anticuada, mojigata, mala amiga, comunista’. 169 In this example,
before calling the other person communist, there is a series of insults, so we can see that
‘comunista’ is also used as an insult. Part of the hilarity comes from changing the frame
for this word, using it as an insult, and making fun of how the authorities used that word
to refer to ‘malicious’ or ‘harmful’. By using the word in this way we are also
ridiculing the authorities.
This statement is even more obvious in an episode from Los Agachados. When
Licenciado Trastupijes is questioned about the reason for some prisoners being in
Chayotitlán’s jail, he answers: ‘¡Son comunistas! ¿Les parece poco? ¡Hemos gastado
millones en decirlo: parece increíble que haya gente que no lo crea!’ A journalist adds:
166 Critchley, On Humour, p. 67.
167 Even Rius made fun of this when on the front page of Los Agachados, 22, he blamed the communists
for the defeat of Mexico in in 1972 World Cup.
168 For example, the 1968 students’ movement in Mexico.
169 La Familia Burrón, 16964, p. 28.
136