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

this incident a good opportunity to complain about the authorities, but in the end, once
they are released, nothing changes for them, and they continue as before, with the same
feelings and the same state of mind. 118 But that does not undermine the characters’
spirit. And they continue with the same conviction and energy in the following issues.
And … the punchline: Some final thoughts on humour
In humour we find relief, feelings of superiority, pleasure and enjoyment. But humour
also makes us stronger. According to Freud, when we hear a joke about ourselves or
about something that represents us or where we belong, instead of being offended we
laugh; we have improved our critical thought and even fortified it. 119 It is ‘el triunfo del
narcisismo, en la victoriosa confirmación de la invulnerabilidad del yo’. 120 With
humour, we not only become stronger, we also see the positive side of a bad situation,
and even find a way to overcome it. This is because humour shows us the folly of the
world, helping us face it ‘and change the situation in which we find ourselves’. 121
Finally, it is important to point out something critical in relation to humour and
its success: as humans we do not laugh about the same things, and even more
importantly, we need to have an open attitude to humour. According to Freud we need
to be both willing to laugh, and also not adversely affected personally by the comic
context. 122 In other words, the issue from La Familia Burrón about abuse of women –
which we will discuss later- would not be funny or the humour would be less effective if
we are personally affected by domestic abuse. Bergson would add that we need to
118 The issue was firstly published in 15 January 1966, and it is reproduced in Eduardo del Río ‘Rius’, Mis
Supermachos (Mexico: Grijalbo, 1990; repr. 2005), pp. 39-64.
119 Freud, El chiste y su relación… p. 132.
120 Freud, ‘El humor…’ (para. 6 of 14)
121 Critchley, On Humour, p. 18.
122 Freud, El chiste y su relación… p. 144.
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