There are few subjects which provoke such passionate responses as the sport of bullfighting. There are no halfway stances or fences to sit on, for by its very nature it is a controversial and dividing subject which creates alienation, bitterness and anger as well sincere beliefs from both sides.
It is a topic which divides opinion fiercely, yet we only become aware of the subject when once more it is annually presented on our doorsteps and again we begin to take notice. In fact, here in France, we are closer to the sport than the people of Catalonia, where bullfighting has been forbidden for the last five years. Oddly, in France, the sport survives and as years pass it appears to flourish from Béziers to Nimes to Arles as well as numerous smaller venues scattered around the region.
To visit a bullfight is an extraordinary and quite an overwhelming experience and emotions can run very close to the surface. For the ‘afficionarioes’ the spectacle has moved from a cruel, inhumane sporting event to what is termed as an ‘art form’. Thus the controversy begins.
AT
FIVE
IN THE
AFTERNOON
By Stephen Morris
To attend a bullfight can be quite a traumatic experience. There is understandably, an air of expectation and spectators can be easily seduced by the atmosphere knowing deep down that they are to witness something that is not an everyday occurrence. The whole spectacle of the bullfight is without doubt superbly dramatic. Young men (and occasionally a woman) strut out, dressed in their suit of lights, into the bright sunlight to face possible death. That in itself is pretty dramatic. As the matadors enter the ring they receive rapturous applause for what could be turned into a massive sacrifice, perhaps of their own lives even. However, it should be emphasized that the bullfighter rarely dies and the bull always does. In terms of its glamour and fascination it is difficult to objectively draw the line between the concept of what is art and what is sport and what is basically nothing more than a barbaric and ritualistic destruction of life in front of huge money paying crowds.
The subject is contentious and controversial. One cannot ignore the fact that bullfighting and its surrounding rituals, have in the past stimulated many great artists and writers from Pablo Picasso to Ernest Hemmingway as well as the superb Spanish poet Garcia Lorca who wrote the haunting and quite brilliant poem “At Five in the Afternoon”. His poem reveals the pathos,courage and beauty that surrounds the gamble with death and certainly romanticises the spectacle. However, in order to question the actual bullfight, one perhaps has go a few degrees above the actual killing and examine what some would term as the artistic merits of the sport. It may be possible to make an objective judgement but one really would have to have an understanding of the ritualistic performance and dig deeply into the history of the sport.
Hemingway’s ‘Death in the Afternoon” which is now considered and accepted as a classical text book on the subject, covers this perfectly. Little though has changed since the publication of the book in the 1930’s. The bull still dies in a ritualistic and obscene way and whichever way one tries to justify it or believe it, yet alone accept it ‘ this should be below the dignity of human beings... Can this ‘sport’ be really considered as an art form one may question? Well maybe it is and some may argue rather cynically that cooking and eating a tender beef steak could be considered an art form.
The justification for the continuation to hold bullfights is financial and cultural as well as traditional and ironically it attracts tourists. The young men in their ‘suits of lights’ are incredibly well paid. By any standards the matadors do reveal a degree of courage that few other people on the planet could emulate only perhaps on a battlefield. These young men certainly have courage. For example, the actual size of the bull when he first appears in the ring is quite terrifying. The bull snorts, he chases, he wants to kill and destroy anything that moves. Of course the bull tires and the ritual of death begins. The matador gently executes a series of passes, each having a merit of its own and this enables the bulls to reveal their individual bravery. As the ritual develops the bull becomes more tormented as he has up to six ‘pics’ plunged into his back. The blood dramatically begins to run down the sides of his body quite freely and the bull naturally reacts to the torture and provocations and tries to fight back. As the battle to the death develops the more frustrated the bull becomes as the bullfighter executes more and more ‘artistic’ passes. The tempo increases, the small band begin to play and the ritualistic ‘kill’ commences. The matadors’ sword is plunged into the heart of the bull and the animal slowly collapses, first on to his knees then keeling over as life flows from his body. The crowd cheer hysterically, and the matador strides around the arena waving and blowing kisses to the spectators. If he has made a clean kill he may be awarded the ears, which are sliced off the head of the dead bull before it is dragged from the ring. The ritual ends only to be reinacted again and again as new ferocious bulls rush into the ring.
One would probably have to return to the past and witness the use of the guillotine during the French Revolution to make some comparisons. The crowd at the bullfights seem to actually enjoy the event and are excited and stimulated by the public death as a spectacle. There are not any sporting or artistic comparisons. To witness a bullfight has no real legal comparisons in modern life.
We know that animals are slaughtered, yet in the bull rings people pay money to witness something which appears to bring out the worst in mankind rather than the best and that cannot be good.