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

allows us to discuss the existence of machismo in an enjoyable manner. According to
Eco, by recognising that our world is like the one portrayed, we are not only admitting
but perhaps also reinforcing machismo, since humour is a safety valve and a means of
transforming displeasure into amusement. This does not mean that we will stop fighting
against whatever causes us distress, simply because we have found an enjoyable way to
deal with it. What Eco claims is that humour is a way to confront the codes from the
inside, so by ridiculing an attitude or situation, we are undermining them from within.
We recognise how ridiculous our world can be, and consequently we might be
motivated to change it.
As previously suggested, machismo is not only encouraged by men, but also by
women, as we see when Borola’s starts a private car hire business and she is hired to
drive Onofre and another child to school. She drives very fast and carelessly, which
causes Onofre to fly out of the car and injure himself. He starts crying and does not
want to get back into the car. Borola scolds him: ‘¡Nada, tú te subes y seguimos
adelante! Vengo con una pareja de machitos, no con dos mariconetes.’ 183 Different
mechanisms of humour emerge in this example, such as incongruity and exaggeration.
However, we can see how Borola’s statement sets machos in a position of superiority.
Machos do not cry, and boys should behave like machos from an early age, bearing all
kinds of pain. She uses insulting words from the macho vocabulary, namely
‘mariconete’ and ‘de todo el catálogo de insultos machistas, lo más agraviante es llamar
a un hombre ‘maricón’…’. 184 By referring to Onofre in this way, she is reinforcing a
macho sexist culture that insults men (and male children) who show weakness. We
recognise the situation, and by laughing we point to this social fault, and perhaps
condemn it. The act of humour reminds us that we live in a macho-ruled society.
183 La Familia Burrón, 17189, p. 18.
184 Barajas, Sólo me río…, p. 150.
141