Russell Beattie

From July 7, 2002. Since I have exponentially more readers now, I figured I'd reprint one of my first long blog posts:

San Fermin (the festival of Pamplona) is here and thus bullfighting is back on television. Just to remind myself what a gory show it is, I just sat through another one of the slayings on TV and am still amazed by it. It's so frustrating, that I'd thought I'd share...

When I first came to Spain I had this idea that bull fighting was this sort of "traditional" sport where once a year or so they would kill a bull or two and that it was okay. But it's not like that at all. It's a sport, televised just like baseball is in the U.S... Thousands of bulls are killed each year in the most amazingly cruel manner possible. During festivals like San Fermin, they'll torture a dozen or so bulls a day. See all those bulls on TV? They're all dead by the end of the day.

Let me walk you through a typical bullfight... I've seen several of them all the way through on television. First the bull comes out of the pen and it's raring to go. It looks around the arena and sees 4 or 5 (not sure) matador-like guys with pink capes. So the bull starts charging them (of course) and really gets worked up. He's got spit flying out of his mouth, he's running around like and idiot and really defending his turf. But the pink-cape guys are just there to tire him out, so they work as a team running the bull around the arena until he starts to wear down.

After a few minutes of chasing pink ghosts, the bull naturally starts to get a little tired and wary and slows down. That's when they bring out the Picador, which is this guy on horseback with a lance. Don't worry about the horse, he's padded up nicely so the bull doesn't do damage to him (or at least not a lot). The bull seeing a new threat, charges the horse. He hits the horse pretty good, but gets his horns caught up in the padding while trying to LIFT the horse. The picador on horseback, uses this opportunity to stick his lance BETWEEN the shoulder blades of the bull. He puts as much of his weight on it as possible so it gets really deep in. They disengage and go at it two or three times so that the picador can get the lance in nice and deep between the bulls shoulders.

This weakens the bull in a variety of ways and you can start to see the blood flowing pretty nicely. Once the picador goes away, the bull definitely has lost that edge he had. But now it's another guys turn to beat up on the bull... the banderilleros (I had to look that one up) come in and start sticking the bull with handheld spears right in the same spot. They stick six or eight of the brightly colored spears (called banderillas) in the bull and they stick there in his back, tearing at the skin and further making his final moments more torturous and confusing. You can see that the bull moves a lot more gently now that the spears are hanging from his back sticking him with every movement...

The bull by this time is tired and wounded and it's obvious by his toungue sticking half way out of his head while he makes half-efforts at his attackers. A few times I've seen that the bull is so worn out by this time that he just stands still and takes it...

Now comes the matador. The brave, fearless matador to face his opponent. Now that his thugs have beaten up the bull pretty nicely, he's there to finish the job. So he takes out the red cape and taunts the bull to run at him. The closer the bull is the cooler it is and the crowd ACTUALLY SAYS "OLE!" when the bull passes... just like in Bugs Bunny. But unlike in cartoons, the bull is dying. He's bleeding profusely (why do you think the cape is blood red, so you don't see the gore as much) and has no energy. The bull lunges clumsily with whatever effort he can muster, but it's not much.

In today's event, the bull passed the matador, tried to turn around, stumbled and fell. Lay there for a moment before getting up. However, it was obvious that he had landed wrong and broken his back leg or foot. But the show isn't stopped, only prolonged... The matador tempts the bull a few more times until it's obvious that the bull has no more energy left, then walks over, gets a slightly curved sword and comes back for the kill.

The matador waits for a moment, positions himself correctly then charges the bull with the sword plunging it between the bull's shoulder blades and into his heart. Ahhhh, if it were only that easy... The matador more often than not, misses his target, and must go back and get another sword or two to finish the job. The bull hangs around for another stab (or two), but then realizes that the end is near and limps pitifully away over to the wall of the arena trying to find a way out of this hell he is in. The bull wanders around, the matador and his henchmen following until, finally, the bull can't stand his wounds any more and he collapses down onto his knees like a cow before the rain and remains there panting.

And the crowd goes WILD!

No really! They're ecstatic! The matador bows and one of his cronies goes over to the bull to finally put him out of his misery. He has what looks like a small dirk in his hand, and uses it to stab the bull in the back of the head to kill him instantly. Gufaw. Yeah, right. One hit! Nope. Two hits! Nope. Three! The bull just takes it, unable to move while this idiot stabs him in the head with a long knife. Then mercifully, this bozo finds his mark - the brain stem - and the bull spasms in death and finally dies. Or at least the television pans away, finally deeming this event too grotesque for even the viewing audience.

It's all over now, so they cut off the bulls ears and something else and then three horses come in, hitch up to the bull and drag him out of the bull ring unceremoniously... after 3 or 4 fights in a row (there are always more than a few) you can see the streaks of blood from former lucky contestants lining the floor of the arena.

Such wholesome family fun for all...

Now, I have never found ANY Spanish person that admits to liking bullfights, yet if you asked them if they should be banned, the answer is almost always a quick and firm "no." Why is that? I think I would be a lot less insulted by the whole process if there weren't SO MANY PEOPLE involved in torturing and killing this animal. If the bull came in and it was just him and the matador, now THAT would be something. Not to say it isn't dangerous now, I've seen quite a few news reports with graphic video of a matador being gored... I'm sure that no matter how wounded the bull is, he's still pretty dangerous. But this is far from the norm. It's much more the norm to see half-runt bulls come in to be tortured by 9 guys for the enjoyment of thousands in the stands and millions on TV...

Did you know in Portugal they have another form of bullfighting where the bull doesn't die? He's not even really injured, just tired out enough so they can grab his tail? I saw it on "Rick Steve's" once...

-Russ