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

demanded land reform: ‘consiguieron lo q. pedían: tierra...’. 214 This is known as true
humour: a social reality has been revealed, the violence of the authorities, and our
laughter is also part of our condemnation of the practice. However, there is little we can
do, so when the enjoyment ends, it turns to sadness, the sadness of being reminded how
the world is, namely very similar to the one just portrayed.
We might feel that the abuse and murder of opponents should be discussed with
seriousness, but besides using humour as one of the few channels to express concerns
and objections, it is also ‘un recurso para adaptarse a la crueldad y al terror de una
realidad específica; [...] es un ejercicio de estoicisimo en la medida en que es un acto de
libertad en el que el individuo busca la aceptación del destino’. 215 Humour is also
rebellion, and it might help us change our destiny –instead of accepting our fate, as
Barajas proposes- since ‘by occasionally stepping back from the seriousness of the
situation and approaching it with a sense of humour (sometimes called ‘looking on the
light side’), we are presumably better able to deal with the source of the problem’. 216
Thus, when citizens suffer horrific attacks, humour will be a way to discuss them, make
fun of them, and ridicule those who inflict the suffering. They help us cope with the
pain and live with it, and they help us search for answers. Help assume the problem by
transforming it into a joke, which enables us to reduce it to something smaller and more
silly.
In an issue of La Familia Burrón described earlier, Bella Bellota is looking for
Ruperto after she learns that he was detained by the police. She gets to the police station
for the second time and asks: ‘Señor, perdone que venga otra vez aquí pero es que en
214 Los Agachados, 98, p. 10.
215 Barajas, Sólo me río… p. 31.
216 McGhee, Humor. Its Origin… p. 21.
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