In a very artistic way. With much aplomb and drama.
Only the Spanish could come up with something like this. There are so many titles I could start this off with: men with an attitude in tight pants and pink socks...blood, gore and danger, a terrible waste of embroidery...
Amanda's and my North American, sanitised outlook on life was challenged. She was the perfect person to go with as we both went in knowing that we certainly would be a little uncomfortable, but being willing to keep an open mind. For my part, I came out with a rather more positive view than most normal people of my milieu probably do. What I have to say is that killing an animal is not a pretty thing. There is some added cruelty here, I suppose, "playing" with the bull. But there are quite a few arguments for the devil, that I can give.
If you are going to eat meat... in my personal opinion you better be okay with the concept of killing an animal. Otherwise you really haven't thought about very much in life. North Americans are so completely cut off from where their food comes from. And nobody wants to eat anything other than a steak. If it looks like some part of the animal, woah! (Guilty, I admit) When all is said and done, I prefer the Spanish way of making a grand exhibition out of the killing of some grand animals, and putting the blood right in your face, than I do the sanitisation of killing that we do. In fact, hiding and sanitising the killing of animals for meat is a bit twisted. That is more likely to lead to problems.
The part that bothered both of us was the role of the horses. They were blindfolded and though they were protected with thick blankets (possibly armoured?) they were subject to direct impact from the angry bulls, while the humans constantly avoided that by distracting. The horses took the bulls horns on their sides and bellies, sometimes being lifted up by the bull. The horns couldn't puncture due to the protection, but I wonder about the damage due to impact. The purpose is to kill the bull. I eat meat so I don't have as big of a problem with the bull dying. Besides, he is not tied or controlled by a human sitting on him. He is free to strike back, if he can manage it. The horse has to bear this, and with his vocal chords cut so he can't make a noise.
In fact the whole bullfighting thing I could be a lot more okay with if it didn't involve horses. The role of the rider is to inflict some serious wounds on the bull with a huge pole with a dagger on the end. It can't go in very far because that is the job of the torero with his sword, near the end. But it makes some large wounds that blood gushes from. After the horseman does his bit, the bull's neck is basically dripping in blood and then the whole thing really begins.
Philosophically I prefer hunting to raising animals. (Practically of course, this is not ecologically feasible to feed nations). The animal has a good life, free. He stands a fair chance - kind of. Guns are kinder - they get it over with quicker. A huge question in killing of animals for food is how to do it with less cruelty. On the other hand, guns put humans at a great advantage - the animal doesn't stand much chance of fighting back. Today I saw one torero get stepped on by a bull. He was carried out and we will have to read the news tomorrow to know if he is fine, has internal organ damage, or died. I have no idea.
It's not that we shouldn't attempt to live better, but I find that after visiting various other countries and spending time in them, North Americans want to keep real life at bay. We want to hide everything and sanitise it. Real life is not pretty. The desire to strip life of everything painful or slightly distasteful leaves us more like robots, and distant from the baser instincts that make us who we are. If you are a vegetarian, fine, I understand your dissent. If you eat meat, you are killing and this is what it looked like before we got onto pretending that doing away with an animal's life quietly behind closed doors as if it really isn't happening at all. I don't really know but perhaps that is more disrespectful to the life of the animal than having a raging bull roaring around, a torero dressed in ornate clothing with a highly refined, ritualistic mode of taunting (gives the bull something to think about or concentrate on while dying - being encouraged to fight back, instead of being electrically prodded along an assembly line it has no chance to run anywhere), and his hand shaking after he's done stabbing the bull.
As for the other aspects... I saw a lot of flamenco happening and now I get it - the connection between flamenco and bullfighting. The way bullfighters move is flamenco. So many things I've been taught in dance classes come from this. Especially one move Rafael taught in January - pure torero. Then there's the Carmen Amaya arms - like bull horns or maybe like this guys holding the colourful spears above their head.
The very first thing that crossed my mind when the first bull came out was how I have stood in front of a group of running cows in a corral and intimidated them from coming in a certain direction, but a raging bull with horns is nothing like that.
There was a heck of a lot of colour in the Maestranza. The audience all fanning themselves with different coloured fans, then come the toreros all with different coloured costumes, covered in extremely ornate gold embroidery (some of which ended up with big blood stains, and others with holes). They all wear pink socks, no matter what colour their costume is. The bullfighter has a red cape with a sword, but initially they all have very large, hot pink capes, that are yellow on the back.
Anyways, this place I am in seems not to belong to the modern world. This place is unreal. That a city like this continues with traditions like this and the others, at this point in time, with interest practically undiminished, that is incredible.
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