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Pretty sickening thread. Cant believe people actually try to compare bullfights to Fox hunting and so forth.
Well, they dont stab and torture the Fox for hours. They just shoot it.
There's no comparison. Torturing living beings is wrong.
There's no reason for it. Only a bunch of rediculous excuses.
I have to fast forward past the bullfight scenes in my Julian Bream video, cause it makes me embarrased to be a human. Not to mention it just makes me want to puke.
Well, they dont stab and torture the Fox for hours. They just shoot it.
TK
Actually they don't shoot the fox in foxhunting, they chase it for hours till it is exhausted and when it is caught it is torn to pieces by the hounds.
There is no comparison between the hunt, whichis considered sport, and the bullfight which is considered art.
You are entitled to your opinion and many people agree with you that it is barbaric, though the majority of flamencos are not amongst them as it is part of their culture and heritage.
Pretty sickening thread. Cant believe people actually try to compare bullfights to Fox hunting and so forth. Well, they dont stab and torture the Fox for hours. They just shoot it.
Fraid not Todd. Not to go too far off topic, but packs of hounds chase it for miles across countryside till it's exhausted, then usually tear it to pieces before the mounted hunters arrive. That's why the "sport" has just been legally banned in UK along with hare coursing. Cock fighting has been illegal for a long time but still goes on. Shooting foxes to keep their numbers down is necessary because they carry lice and disease and are a danger to health around towns and cities.
Fox hunting is usually the pursuit of people with too much money and not enough to do with their time. Sorry to the foro for getting so far off topic but had to put the score straight. I'm not in favour of blood sports in my own country. Bullfighting, we have to accept is the culture of another land. You don't like it, you don't go.
A bit off topic but friends of mine from London were staying in a croft in Scotland and got snowed in. They went to the farmer and asked where to buy food and he said nowhere and that they should kill one of the pigs. The three women were horrified but decided that if they could not do it then they would never eat meat again. They were hungry so they did it and are now proud that they did. They felt they had earned the right to eat meat.
I was brought up in the country and could happily kill a chicken, pluck it , gut it and eat it. Catching them is the problem sometimes, and keeping the bloody foxes out of the coop.
Hi Kate, I'm afraid I'm too much of a city-boy softie for that... I'd just end up starving to death and the pigs would eat me LOL! That's what I mean...I'm a total hypocrite on this issue... I went fishing once when I was a kid and felt guilty for days after. I can handle meat so long as it's not moving.
Je je je My Harold always says he wont eat anything with a face. And sometimes when asked why he's a veggie, he simply says " I hate animals, why would I want to eat them' which is not quite true but it surprises people who think it is compassion that makes him a veggie as opposed to contempt for the meat industry.
Bullfighting is regarded as an honourable profession in Spain. In England, in the words of Oscar Wilde, fox hunting he regarded as "The unspeakable in pursuit of the uneatable"
Apparently in Mexico they don't kill the bull. I don't know if this is true or not. I was invited to the bull fights in Sevilla when I was there, but I simply couldn't do it. I realize it is a culturally defining activity and is a cornerstone of Spanish-Andalucian heritage, but I simply can't watch a creature tortured to death. If I want to see artestry in movement, I'll watch someone dance.
Recently in Canada, a Toronto-based independent film maker was jailed for his documentary-film of his lengthy torture and subsequent killing of a stray cat he found. He claimed it was art. The law disagreed since we have anti cruelty-to-animals laws here (and the guy obviously couldn't deny that he'd done the deed).
Cruelty is cruelty and I find it difficult to see how consensus can make it perfectly acceptable as artistic expression. It's based in tradition from an earlier time and I suspect that the days of the bull fight in Spain are numbered. I know my views aren't popular on this and as others have said, "if you don't like it don't go". So I didn't.
This is via a perspective based on the Lorca poem "Homenaje a Ignacio Sanchez Mejila" which he wrote on the death of his bullfighter friend. They met through the dancer La Argentinita and Lorca's love of flamenco is well documented.
RE: The Bullfight Bloody "UPSET... (in reply to gj Michelob)
quote:
Well, at least sometimes, as here, the Bull upsets the odds and wins
I am surprised to read such a stupid commentary from an intelligent person. The Corrida de Toros is correctly translated as a running of the bulls. It is NOT a bullfight, which is a bad translation between cultures.
This is a ritual: the bull is intended to die.
I would regard anyone who takes pleasure from what happened to Juan Mora as a sub human species.
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RE: The Bullfight Bloody "UPSET... (in reply to Morante)
quote:
quote:
Well, at least sometimes, as here, the Bull upsets the odds and wins
I am surprised to read such a stupid commentary from an intelligent person. The Corrida de Toros is correctly translated as a running of the bulls. It is NOT a bullfight, which is a bad translation between cultures.
This is a ritual: the bull is intended to die.
I would regard anyone who takes pleasure from what happened to Juan Mora as a sub human species.
I feel privileged that I had, as a child, the opportunity to attend a Corrida, in Barcelona. I respect the spectacular folklore of this ancient tradition, as part of great culture. However, I remember how the clamor of the crowd was silenced by daunting moments of ritualistic violence which remain vivid and shocking in my memory.
I would never applaud as a man falls injured, but I cannot equally applaud the gratuitous violence inflicted on any living being, such as –in this instance- a bull.
My post was in reply to ToddK, adding to one of a few threads on the subject. May I recommend you carefully read first -the thread and the Independent article- and then calmly place all words in context, before your judge.
The hasty conclusions you drew here are a dash too emotional and rushed, and may unjustly offend.
Saint Augustine, in his "City Of God" [where he argues against the Roman's position that Christians destroyed the honorable values of Rome] makes the example of Gladiators. After killing his opponent, the Gladiator removes his victim's mask, and realizes he is his own son. The father weeps, and so does the crowd. The author, rhetorically asks, how distant a kin does he need to be for you to stop weeping and begin cheering?
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From: England, living in Italy
RE: The Bullfight Bloody "UPSET... (in reply to Morante)
quote:
I am surprised to read such a stupid commentary from an intelligent person.
What's stupid about GJ's comment? If I understand it correctly, two bulls injured three toreros. This was considered something of an upset in the media and some might consider it a victory for the bulls, who pass into legend for such qualities in the corrida and the subsequent increase in their fees e.g. Ratón.
RE: The Bullfight Bloody "UPSET... (in reply to Morante)
It's never nice when someone gets injured but at the same time i can't say i feel sorry for him he chose to mess with bulls for a living and got the horns.
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From: Washington, DC
RE: The Bullfight Bloody "UPSET... (in reply to Morante)
quote:
This is a ritual: the bull is intended to die.
Long before I had seen my first corrida I had read Ernest Hemingway's "Death in the Afternoon," which, in my opinion, is still the finest narrative explanation and historical record of the meaning and great names associated with the "art" and "ritual" in Spain (at least up to the time it was published). I appreciate what the corrida means to the Spaniard, but one must recognize that although matadors must indeed be brave, there is much more to the ballet taking place than just the brave matador facing the bull.
Before the matador even faces the bull, the picador on horseback has greatly weakened the bull by lancing the neck muscles. And the Bandarillas have further weakened the bull by placing their smaller lances in his neck. In other words, the matador is not facing a bull with full strength. Now that's something that would really take courage. Instead, he faces a bull that has been deliberately weakened to give the matador a much greater edge. With this in mind, one can conclude that the matador may not be as brave as he appears to be.
Although it is a ritual, the corrida is as sadistic a piece of entertainment as were the gladiatorial contests in Rome, or bear baiting, or cock fighting and dog fighting are today. Any endeavor, whether it is considered "ritual" or not, that depends on taunting and tormenting animals and resulting in their death, cannot be considered civilized entertainment in today's more enlightened world.
The corrida was banned in Catalonia by a vote of the Catalan Parliament in July 2010. The ban came into effect on 1 January 2012. The last bullfight in the region took place in Barcelona in September 2011. The Catalans are ahead of their other Spanish compatriots in recognizing that the practice has no place in civilized society today.
I expect that the corrida will eventually die out (albeit over a long period of time) in the rest of Spain. Ironically, like the Spanish language as it was spoken in an earlier era, the corrida may continue to be found in Spain's New World ex-colonies such as Colombia, long after it has died out in Spain. Although my guess is it will die out in Mexico before Colombia, at some point in the distant future it probably will be banned everywhere.
Cheers,
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white, With the name of the late deceased, And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here, Who tried to hustle the East."
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RE: The Bullfight Bloody "UPSET... (in reply to gj Michelob)
quote:
This Photograph, inspired the title of my post:
No amount of nattering on about "ritual" and "Cultural relativity" can pretty that one up.
Cheers,
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white, With the name of the late deceased, And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here, Who tried to hustle the East."
I don´t wonder as much about the lowly voyeurism and sadism with the visitors as I do about the intellectual primitiveness of fading out the perfidity and cowardice with the preparation of such fuss.
On a rational measure, people who can enjoy such are psychopaths. And Hemingway´s glorification of such a massacre is what kept me from appreciating him. To dress disgusting highs like that as insignia of manhood has undermined all of what could have appeared intellectual with his works. He was no intellectual.
RE: The Bullfight Bloody "UPSET... (in reply to BarkellWH)
quote:
[GJ:] This Photograph, inspired the title of my post:
[Bill:] No amount of nattering on about "ritual" and "Cultural relativity" can pretty that one up.
Agreed, although to its proponents, this is "arte puro".
My feelings were well expressed by GJ: "I would never applaud as a man falls injured, but I cannot equally applaud the gratuitous violence inflicted on any living being, such as –in this instance- a bull. "
Nevertheless, the effect of "cultural relativity" is such that, seeing the picture below, a scene in the Blackadder episode The Queen of Spain's Beard, involving "flamboyant clothes", inevitably came to mind.
Images are resized automatically to a maximum width of 800px
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RE: The Bullfight Bloody "UPSET... (in reply to Estevan)
These images we proposed here, Estavan, belong in a Museum, as they speak of (to quote a song) ..."another lifetime, one of toil and blood/ When blackness was a virtue and the road was full of mud/"
It is a cultural issue. No-one can argue for it successfully. This is the 21st century. Of course people will defend it if they are raised within the culture, newer generations need to be educated. Education will destroy all cultural boundaries, race, religion, nationality or sex.
RE: The Bullfight Bloody "UPSET... (in reply to gj Michelob)
“Flamenco without the bullfight, and the bullfight without flamenco, cannot be understood,” José Mercé told EFE, Spain’s national news agency, adding that the two disciplines are “las mayores culturas” [the major cultural expressions; or, possibly, the oldest cultural expressions] of the nation, with numerous points of encounter.
In the same vein, the torero Juan José Padilla assured the audience that one cannot understand a good bullfight without the “flamenco foundation” [fondo flamenco] that accompanies it, and stated that a siguiriya or a soleá sung by Mercé serves as an inspiration for a bullfighter.
RE: The Bullfight Bloody "UPSET... (in reply to Morante)
quote:
“Flamenco without the bullfight, and the bullfight without flamenco, cannot be understood,” José Mercé told EFE, Spain’s national news agency, adding that the two disciplines are “las mayores culturas” [the major cultural expressions; or, possibly, the oldest cultural expressions] of the nation, with numerous points of encounter.
In the same vein, the torero Juan José Padilla assured the audience that one cannot understand a good bullfight without the “flamenco foundation” [fondo flamenco] that accompanies it, and stated that a siguiriya or a soleá sung by Mercé serves as an inspiration for a bullfighter.
Yeah, we know that - it's the same stuff I posted recently in another related thread.
Posts: 1531
Joined: Nov. 7 2008
From: New York City/San Francisco
RE: The Bullfight Bloody "UPSET... (in reply to Morante)
quote:
“Flamenco without the bullfight, and the bullfight without flamenco, cannot be understood,” José Mercé told EFE, Spain’s national news agency, adding that the two disciplines are “las mayores culturas” [the major cultural expressions; or, possibly, the oldest cultural expressions] of the nation, with numerous points of encounter.
In the same vein, the torero Juan José Padilla assured the audience that one cannot understand a good bullfight without the “flamenco foundation” [fondo flamenco] that accompanies it, and stated that a siguiriya or a soleá sung by Mercé serves as an inspiration for a bullfighter.
Wether I agree or disagree, I enjoy a civil exchange. However, from my days before Judges and Magistrates, I know that when my opponent runs out of words and calls me "stupid" or "sub-human".... I won the argument.
I am glad to see that now you have chosen a more intellectual fashion to contradict my views, Morante. There is no "handshake" icon... but please imagine I posted one.
I'd just like to remind you that bullfighting isn't a purely Spanish/South American thing. Bulls are killed in southern France. Bullfights (albeit without killing the bull) are part of Portugal's heritage.
Education will destroy all cultural boundaries, race, religion, nationality or sex.
If there be enough time to survive destructive ignorance. -
Too bad education cannot be administered by injection, bypassing then centuries needed to eventually drive away that massive bonehead that is smashing the planet and its life like a nutcracker.
Really, bro, look at the epicenters of deliberate density and tell me how much time it could be taking to overcome it. And when you come up with some discrete time frame make sure to take into consideration the clerical and industrial layouts that promote low-brow to their benefit, and the efforts needed to cease such agenda. -
When a kid I thought modernitys sobriety was taking over, leaving all the jumbo mumbo behind within short while. How naive was that.
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