Pajiba

It takes a special kind of closeted homo to run around in sequined tights and gang up on an animal and then call it "macho."

Instead of completely outlawing it, PETA should push for a winner goes home clause. If you're the baddest bull muthafucka out there, you deserve a nice pasture and some fly cow honeys. Let him breed more awesome bulls, it'll be good for the sport until one of his kids doesn't want to be a matador-fighter and wants to go to a liberal arts college. That would be my movie.

I'd like to be more up in arms about the cruel treatment of the bulls... but I eat steak, and those cows aren't exactly hugged to death.

Do they get to eat the bulls after? I mean its not fair to the bulls but they sure are tastey.

but I eat steak, and those cows aren't exactly hugged to death.

Yeah, but there's a bit of a difference between killing for food, and practically crippling an animal before killing it for 'sport.'

And this acknowledgement comes from a longtime vegetarian.

Yeah, but there's a bit of a difference between killing for food

A bit, but I've seen some of those slaughterhouse videos, and that isn't exactly humane killing. If anything, I think supporting the whole factory farm mentality makes me way more of a bastard per capita than if I actually was a matador myself.

Now I'm not one to get on a high horse and judge other cultures and their traditions.

Funny, I'm exactly that kind of person. Fuck these assholes and their savage cruelty to animals.

On the one hand, bullfighting is a fascinating leftover from Roman era spectacle (it's essentially the last vestige of Gladiatorial competition - the difference being it's a bull and not a slave this time around).

On the other hand, it's fucking stomach-churning, frightening, and cruel.

That said, I am with twig in that I eat meat (though I try to keep it humanely and locally raised), and the current American factory farm food-supply system involves animals subjected to lifetimes of torture in horrifying conditions just to put a burger on a plate - which to me, is far worse than one day of horrors for a bull in the ring. So I suppose I don't have much ground to stand on in judging the Spanish tradition.

It's all relative. The film might be fascinating (even if it makes a vegetarian out of me).

Fired,

I'll buy your humaneness point, mine was just that hunting is in no sense a sport. The weekend warriors in their camouflaged parkas may be doing a service to the wild animal community by killing some of it, but sportsmen they ain't.

Hola,

Weeeell, first thing: I'm spanish (from Spain, Europe)and I've NEVER, NEVER,EVER been into a Bullfight (corrida). Why? because I know this: "First of all, the fights all end with a dead bull".Dude? hello? Did you need to go to a corrida to realized about that? Sorry, but you should read before goin'to "support" this brutal killing (yes, you paid for it, you support it) and turist should stop thinking that Spain is just corridas and toreros.

By the way, Im from Barcelona (and I know nothing! Wink!) and proud to say that my city is "free bullfighting city"-

Saludos and sorry for my english.

As others have said, I eat meat and that is a cruel industry (and I hate supporting it but can't seem to give up meat), but maybe it's the in-your-face horror of bull fighting that makes it even sadder. The bull is tortured, confused, and humiliated, simply for entertainment. And it's not even a fair fight.

For those not reflexively repulsed by the notion of hunting, there are responsible and influential hunters' groups out there. Population thinning is legitimate, though in part made necessary in the first place by human encroachment. I also think there's a moral imperative to eat what you kill, or else donate the meat.

The only kind of bull-related "combat" I'm willing to see is in Northern Spain where the dudes in tights just do acrobatics, jumping over the bull and showing off. No knives, swords, blades, or nothing, just a good workout for all involved. I'm a meatitarian and I regret that there's some measure of cruelty in my food production but it's generally not prolonged and it's not for entertainment. If you're going to fight a bull, don't start with its horns blunted and it being pre-wounded. Man up, have only one dagger, and try circumcise it - that's a fight I'd be happy to see the winner survive. What's the "sport" in an unfair fight? And what's so fucking great about men in tights showing how great they are in slowly killing an animal? Isn't that kind of cruelty generally a precursor to psychopathic behaviour? I know that cultures often enshrine various unspeakable/inexplicable acts as part of their heritage to be embraced - shouldn't we be able to get past that by now? Bullfights, stoning women, honour killings, invading countries illegally for no good reason, foot binding, genital mutilation, demonising people or beliefs opposed to your own...what the fuck is wrong with us???

Meaux, has your bartender training extended to a friendly ear and encouraging word? I'll be in the MurderLounge later today and I think I'm gonna be snarly - you got anything for that?

*weeps. Dammit.

Ah, Barcelona.
I almost got arrested there. Good times.

We went to a corrida, and my traumatized younger sister had to be escorted out after like 5 minutes.

It was the most boring spectacle of needless animal cruelty I've ever seen.

I'd pay good money to see one man, one bull enter, and see who leaves. None of that pansy ass toreadores with their pointy barbs and leaving a half-dead animal to face the great matador.

I'm with STEEELLLAAA! - If you're gonna act like you's in the house to deliver a proper ass-whuppin, you'd best be fighting a foe who's running on a tank fulla gas.

My wife and I went to a bullfight in Cancun a couple of years ago. It was very entertaining up until the actual bullfight. Especially when they let drunk Americans into the ring with the young bulls. My impression at the end was that its a pretty stupid way to kill a cow.

I don't hunt, and I don't eat red meat much anymore.

Still, I'll point out that hunting provides a big part of the local economy for some rural places. All that beer adds up.

Also, firedmyass is right about controlling animal populations. Big predators (bears, cats, wolves) used to do that, until we hunted all of them to near extinction. Now deer are a huge problem even in some urban areas. Ask anyone who runs an auto body shop.

Hee! Helmet, are bulls the new godless killing machines?

Cuca, that's a show I'd pay to see! How do they piss off the bull to start with though? Somebody pull its tail?

Jules, my sources say "yes."

I'm really quite torn about the subject of bullfighting. I once attended a bullfight when I was going to school in Spain and was absolutely horrified! There were three matadores and each of them fought two bulls, which meant that I saw six bulls getting killed that evening. It was gruesome. Everything that Seth wrote above was spot on.

On the other hand, I totally agree with twig's point: our meat industry commits much greater evils. And the Spanish bulls have a lovely well-cared for life of at least four years before they enter the ring. Yes, it would seem quite fair to free a bull that is lucky enough to gore the matador, but I'm not sure if the the prior damage to the bull (barbs in its neck to weaken the muscles, for example) would allow it to have any quality of life, so perhaps they have to kill it.

As for the sportsmanship of it all... I would argue that bullfighting isn't a sport -- it's a performance art. It's all about the unflinching grace, the style of the performance. And everything up to that point (the picadores, the banderillas in the neck) is to craft the components of the act so that they culminate in the ultimate show. Does that make it right? I can't say. All I know is that I'll never see another one again.

Yeah, my freshman year in high school we went to Spain (7 days in Madrid, 4 in Barcelona) and I had absolutely no interest in watching the bull fight. It was an optional event, so me and all the granola vegetarian kids went out to lunch with this hot Spanish guy. Needless to say, all of the kids that were all "Awesome, bull fight!" "This is going to be awesome!" Left early, and many of the girls cried.

Last year in my senior Spanish class we did a whole lesson on bull fights, and really got to see how the whole thing worked. I believe they also cut off the tail and the ears and give them to the matador as a trophy. Nice, right?

You can't miss the bear.

I might be more receptive to this if a deer hadn't caused $1700 worth of damage to my fucking stopped at a red light car 9 days ago. For the first time in my life I wished I was a redneck so I could kill that fucker. What kind of dumbass animal rams stopped car?

Anyway, yeah, it's fucking horrible to kill, for no reason, an animal that will not become food. Still it's kind of stupid to not see the movie, it's like not seeing a movie about an abortionist because you're pro life, except worse because a bull's not now and will never be a person.

But if I find that asshole with my blue Toyota paint paint on her hooves and glass in her fur, I will punch it to death or until I get $1700 dollars out of it.

Fuck this cultural bullshit (if you'll pardon the expression) if it's wrong it's wrong, it's cruelty disguised as a sport... it's ridiculous to give a barbaric practice a pass based on some ridiculous notion of "preserving cultural traditions'... we, as societies, evolve, in thought and in practice. Some traditions have value and are worth preserving whilst others tend to be discarded over time... and this is one practice that firmly belongs in the bin.

Oh and fuck PETA... bunch of crazies

i witnessed my first bullfight this summer in spain, and while i'll never go see another one i thought it was quite interesting. i will however correct one of the many false perceptions of the bullfight in that the bull isn't killed for nothing. All of the meat and the hide go to provide for the homeless of madrid. so it's not like its going to waste.

The bulls don't get even in Pamplona. They may get the occasional drunk tourist on the way to the ring, but they don't have a chance. All bulls die that very afternoon in the "corrida". The fact that the bull meat is sold to local bars and eaten that same evening and that it does not go to waste is not an excuse for the barbaric treatment these noble beasts receive before dying. I am from a little town outside of Pamplona and grew up in the culture. As a kid, I accepted bullfights as a fact of life. Time and space have made me understand the sadistic, cruel spectacle that bullfights really are. They should be outlawed. I suspect most younger Spaniards feel the way I do.