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

We also saw how films and comics could be understood as creators of a partial
reality, or as possible worlds whose messages amounted to allegories of our own world.
In spite of the caricatured images and the absurdity of the stories, films and comics
created their own universe. They made their own narrative plausible. We compared
them with our own reality. Through these analyses we found that the idea of studying a
society through its expressions of humour made sense. We noticed how humour went
beyond the idea of amusement and denial of reality and in fact brought us face to face
with very serious issues. We laughed even while we noticed that the absurd world being
portrayed was in fact our reality. At first glance, humour and visual media seem like
simple entertainment. But their social content has a social good: seeing such content
expressed openly can be very comforting.
In a time in which the government spoke of tolerance and opening, it should not
be surprising to find criticism in the media. But the government’s words were empty
rhetoric; they continued hunting, punishing, torturing and even killing their opponents.
In a period in which there was low tolerance to criticism, the channels of expression
were reduced. To express dissent was dangerous, and humour became the ideal
language to express disagreement; it was a way to ‘disguise’ our real judgments,
improving the chances of the message being received and punishment being avoided.
Thus, society found a way to complain. They saw their daily concerns and fears
played out in humorous films and comics. Echeverría did allow some criticism, and
although not all criticism expressed through these media was well-received or went
without penalty, the odds of escaping unscathed were greater. The proof is that these
films and comics were released and their content was made available for public
consumption. Nevertheless, their thoughts were diluted by being embedded into wider
stories, narratives that were not political. Tívoli and Calzonzin Inspector were the only
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