Death in the Afternoon: Corrida de Torros

Nothing is worse than hearing a bull bellow in agony while it is being slaughtered by the very person that has been feeding it like a king its entire life. Supposedly, if the matador is good and accurate, the final stab should collapse the bull in seconds. Lights out. No suffering. No bellows. I didn’t see good matadors Sunday evening. I saw a lot of suffering. It was amateur night and the bellows of 6 unlucky bulls reverberated throughout the beautiful night’s sky. 

Love it or hate it, bullfights are a matter of course in Spain. Despite the recent prohibitions in Cataluña (see this link), bullfighting - known as a corrida de toros in Spanish - is extremely popular. There is a certain logic to the “sport” that an untrained observer cannot immediately comprehend. The banderilleros are graceful and taunt the 1500 lbs bulls with their technicolor capes. Meanwhile, more quick-footed banderilleros jump out of the charging bull’s path at the very last second after stabbing it in the shoulder with two banderillas. After the banderilleros weaken the bull, a matador goes in for the kill and stabs the bull with a sword in a “kill spot.”

But the novice matadors on Sunday night repeatedly failed to kill the bulls quickly (WARNING: watch this video that I took for an example). It took the matadors several attempts to sink their swords into the “kill spot,” thereby inciting the bulls to moan in agony. The crowd often echoed the moan, seemingly due to their disappointment with the matador’s skill rather than the bull’s wellbeing. An uproar of another kind, of course, celebrated the bulls’ eventual, if slow, demise.

After seeing the first bull suffer, I was secretly praying for some retribution. I got it... not once, but twice. One matador got hit hard by a bull, flung into the air, and then trampled on before his mates distracted the animal and whisked the unlucky Spaniard out of the ring. Two fights later, a banderillero named Jesús Márquez suffered worse - a bull charged his leg and severed his femoral artery (see this article, and this one. WARNING: watch this video of the actual incident.). Human blood now painted the ring. Márquez was carried out and rushed to the emergency room. The remaining fights continued as planned. 

I had not formed an opinion on bullfighting before coming to Spain, and I’m not entirely sure that I was able to form an opinion after seeing my first bullfight. I saw suffering and retribution. Either way, I definitely didn’t leave the stadium feeling as jubilant as if my favorite football team had just won a game. I felt unnerved and fatigued. Empty even. At least, I was assured, the bulls don’t go to waste - their meat is eaten and their skin is crafted into kitschy goods for tourists to buy.