Anyone been to see the bullfights?

[Cheeta]

Seen this bit on the CBC yesterday about a bull that got up into the grandstand in Mexico City and thought it pretty funny. Didn't complete his great escape of course, but he made as good an effort as can be expected and it took some real work to kill the cheeky bugger so "bully" for him.

Ha. I made a funny.

Anyway, who amongst you world travellers have been to bullfights and what did you think of them?

Have to admit I'd love to go. From the fellows at work who've been to parts of Mexico where they hold bullfights it's quite something to see. Once anyway. And leave the wife at the resort.

[Kurosawa]

In Sevilla in 2000 I saw some kind of bullfight. It was during a flamenco festival they have every 2 years. It was called a Andalucian Opera I think, it was a story about a young man who wants to become a bullfighter, so there was some signing and some bullfight (2). One of the bulls was killed by the main character while he was on a horse, that was pretty spectacular. I liked it a lot despite the fact that I am a part time vegetarian. Let's just say that I understood why the bulls they kill are black, that way you don't see as much blood.

While we talk about bulls, if you ever go to Sevilla try a tapas of Rabo de Toro, you get the eat part of the tail of a bull. It was really good.

[Loud Mouth Soup]

Yeah, watching a gang of twats with swords killing a doped-up animal.

Great fun.

"Fans" of this "sport" should be kicked between the legs. Hard.

[canso]

Hey there's a new sport worth watching!
Hemmingway look alike bull fighting fans being chased around a ring by self-righteous LoudMouths trying to kick them in the crotch!
Ole!

[River City]

I guess animals are treated much better at Rodeos or at food processing plants......

Yes, bulls are killed (and that is very cruel), but the spectacle of the show is amazing. Growing up in the Portugal, they'd televise bullfights saturday afternoons. Two big differences between Portuguese and Spanish bullfights are;
1) we don't kill the bull in the arena, they do it afterwards although half the Portuguese people I talk to claim they're actually put out to stud (not a bad price to pay for the reward)
2) we have a unique aspect to the show. 6,7 or 8 guys (I can't remember) line up single file and the guy in front slowly advances towards the bull yelling at him and trying to get his attention. Then the bull charges the line, the first guy has to brace himself and the rest of them pile on to try and bring the bull to a standstill. The Spanish have no balls to do this.....

[canso]

I'd read about the bullfight spectacle (Hemmingway, Mailer, Michener) and until you actually see it unfold, all that verbage about man confronting savagery and death with grace and courage is just so much verbage. But I was lucky enough to see a near perfect (there is no perfection in bullfighting) performance and there was one moment when the matador, preparing for the kill, drew the flat of his sword down the nose of the bull in a kind of affectionate caress while staring into his eyes and whispering gently to him, before taking the final charge full on and killing him instantly with a clean thrust over the horns.
The most gripping drama I've ever seen in any kind of public spectatcle.

[Jeffery S.]

Wasn't there a serious attempt to stage a bullfight in Montreal about a decade ago, which was eventually blocked, or perhaps not?

Another Canadian angle: an artist friend here from Winnipeg -Syd- and I used to joke about applying for a Canada Council grant to study bullfighting in Canada, since I guess they'd refused us at the time for art related projects.

I know a lot of people against, others who are quite passionate. Though one of the most interesting experiences I had was in France, watching a bullfight in the Arenes in Nimes, the Roman coliseum. They have two fairs a year, in May and September, in the Spanish style, and a French fight with short bulls from the Camargue over the whole summer, quite different.

In France there is even a bullfighting critic for Liberation. Culturally what is fascinating is how rational, secular France has this contrasting side that defends its Mediterranean, romantic past and need for metaphor and drama, and challenges the liberal rationalist ideas that would do away with all such manifestations from another time. So you see, in Nimes or Beziers or Narbonne, or Arles (basically in Languedoc from Montpellier to the Rhone, but not near the Spanish border) these little Parisian women who have studied flamenco come down for the week they have the fights (Spanish style, bulls, fighters, except for the rejoneadores) in these towns with their Spanish festivals and you can find them dancing flamenco (or to Gypsy King-type) music in the townspeople's garages, which they turn into bodegas. The public is in fact very knowledgable.

The first fight I saw was in Cordoba, during Easter. Maybe it was 1989. I sat in the sol section -cheaper- but near the sombra, just like the old retired types, since the shadow would eventually fall on them too. They offered me bits of their sandwiches and chorizo and cheese and wine. The fight was a disaster, two bulls came up lame, one refused to fight and refused to leave the ring, one torero almost got himself killed kneeling before the gate as the bull charged out. Before one "estocada", final thrust for the kill, an old fragile lady leaned over to me and said "ahora busca la muerte", referring to the bull: "now he is looking for his death".

The Cordobese are the most gentle and friendly people I have ever met in all my Spanish travels.

A friend who is an artist now doing painting on Nazi horror, very good paintings in fact on a tough subject (I am showing them in March in a gallery I curate (www.h-aac.net), just called me yesterday and told me he was going this spring to Vinarós, on the coast not far from Villareal, for an homage to a Spanish concentration camp survivor (Matthausen). I said I'd go with him, but for another reason as well: I wanted to take my son to a bullfight, as in Catalonia kids can't go. And he got all excited and told me about how beautiful the ring is and how he'd go too. If you think this is a contradiction then the power and beauty and Spain will be lost on you, you are better off going to Bermuda.

That said, I have no trouble respecting someone who believes that is an inappropriate treatment of an animal. I am sure they actually do suffer. But it is also a lot more than that, which is why I defend its existence, though admit I have not gone in years.

[BrennanFan]

I used to get taken to bullfights when i was a kid growing up in south america. nothing like seeing a bull run full charge at a human being. but what i remember most were the 'pre-game' cock-fights. they would go at it and it would be like one big ball of feathers rol;ing around, wings flapping, and then all of a sudden there would be blood gushing out of one of them and that would be it. Yea its not the greatest thing to do with animals, but its not like theyre endangered. Lets not get too ethnocentric here, its cultural.

[Loud Mouth Soup]

"its cultural".


Still no excuse. Cultures evolve.

I find this strange that this thread came up the same day it came up on another board and everyone turned hard on the guy trying to justify it on 'cultural grounds' or 'you people just don't understand'.

Screw off with the 'don't understand'.

[River City]

Canadians club baby seals don't we?
And we shoot innocent forest animals...I mean hunt, don't we?