Bloodless Bullfighting For Boundless Earnings

Cross-border arrangements to popularize a borderline entertainment in the United States

With the last four decades spent without any bullfighting events, Las Vegas kicks off a comeback season of bullfights in the United States, with the festival organized by Don Bull Productions and held at the South Point Casino Hotel. World class bullfighting celebrities, or “toreros”, agreed to perform their art in the entertainment capital of the world, with the main particularity that bullfights in Vegas are bloodless, in respect to Nevada law. Adhesive Velcro pads are being used there, instead of traditional “banderillas”, in order to avoid any blood during the show. Contracting famous bullfighters such as José Ortega Cano, Enrique Ponce, Alejandro Amaya, Federico Pizarro y Antonio Barrera, the organizators are seeking to present this festival as an opportunity to promote bullfighting in a country where it has become polemic. With a world wide TV coverage and the choice of a city such as Las Vegas, the organizators are willing to set up this event in an attractive way giving it its full dimension of entertainment.

A symbolic event celebrating Spanish and Latin cultures

Today, bullfighting or “corrida de toros” in Spanish (literally running of bulls) appears as an emblem of both Spanish and Latin cultures, and many fans or “aficionados” regard it as a deep-rooted inheritance of their national cultures. For instance, the Spanish poet Garcia Lorca depicted bullfighting as Spain's "authentic religious drama."

The idea to promote bullfighting in the United States is not new, and is mainly due to the large audience and amounts of money bullfights generate. Bullfighting is a very popular entertainment in Spain and Latin countries where the public participates in assessing the bullfighter’s performance. The audience cheers his style and bravery by saying “Olé” and expects the bull to display aggression to guarantee an exciting show. At the end of the corrida, if the bullfighter, or “matador” has done exceptionally well, the public gives him a standing ovation. Shaking hats and white handkerchiefs, the spectators can also ask to praise the bullfighter with one or two ears, or even the tail of the bull, depending on the quality of his performance.

In his novel Death in the Afternoon, Ernest Hemingway epitomized "the emotional and spiritual intensity and pure classic beauty that can be produced by a man, an animal, and a piece of scarlet draped on a stick." Indeed, many critics consider bullfighting as an art rather than as a mere sport. Aficionados compare it to a kind of ballet, with a proper aesthetic based on the interaction of the man and the bull: "You're taking the brute force of nature and blending the bull's charge, your cape, and your body into something that does have artistic value," said Diego O'Bolger one of the rare American professional bullfighters, adding that when done with mastery, "it's almost like ballet."

Involving the danger of death, this ballet becomes a “deadly dance”. In Death in the Afternoon Ernest Hemingway, made this statement that "bullfighting is the only art in which the artist is in danger of death and in which the degree of brilliance in the performance is left to the fighter's honour." The American writer captured something essential about bullfighting: the struggle between life and death, the fight between the matador and the bull, and the display of artistry in the face of fatality: "A death will occur this afternoon, will it be man or animal?" Indeed, bullfighters are at great risk of suffering goring that can be fatal and famous bullfighters died on the horns of a bull, like Manolete who was killed by a bull named Islero.

In spite of the violence of the show, bullfighting fans argue that the show conveys essential values through the style, technique and bravery displayed by its performers. Moreover, they considerate the bull as a worthy adversary, that deserves full respect. One must take into consideration that bulls learn fast and that the matador must display his skills before the animal learns from his gesture and stop to follow the cape moves. The audience might applaud the bull’s performance or petitions the president of the show to spare its live granting him an "indulto” when the bull has fought exceptionally bravely, allowing it to leave the ring alive and become a stud bull for the rest of its life. That is why aficionados claim that bullfighting allegorizes the struggle between life and death and is not about violence, since the bull is fulfilling its destiny in its fateful encounter with man.

Horns and proms: the challenge of popularizing bullfighting in the US

Despite its deep cultural tradition in Spain and Latin countries, bullfighting is increasingly seen as a controversial entertainment, mainly because of the pain and injuries inflicted to the bull. To supporters who argue that it is a culturally important tradition, animal-rights groups answer back saying that it is an archaic blood sport.

Some international groups such as the World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA) or the Anti-Bullfighting Campaign (ABC) International have violently protested against bullfighting; and in the United States, groups such as Showing Animals Respect and Kindness (SHARK) or People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) have conducted aggressive campaigns to denounce it. Bullfighting is coming under animal rights attack from within Spain itself, though supporters argue that the life and death of the bull is far more enviable than the lives and death of meat cattle in commercial farming. In consequence to national and international opposition, bullfighting is banned in many countries and some "bloodless" variations appeared in countries or cities such as Las Vegas.

This clash of sensibilities is particularly vehement along the frontier between Mexico and the US, with many American tourists attending the bullfights held in the string of rings running from Tijuana to Ciudad Juárez. Whereas bullfighting is very popular in Mexico, the anti-cruelty sentiment has long sustained opposition in the United States. A debate between animal cruelty and cultural intolerance takes place between both sides and is rather intense, since from its outcome depends the behavior of potential US ticket buyers and corporate sponsors.

However, in Spain and some Latin countries, bullfighting is seen as popular as baseball is in the United States, and bullfighters have the same celebrity status as do sports stars here. For instance, the French bullfighter Sebastien Castella is almost as famous in the South of France and Spain as the Yankee baseball star Derek Jeter in the United States.

There are many fighting venues in Spain and Latin America, the largest of its kind being the Plaza de Toros México in Mexico City, which can welcome 48,000 aficionados. Spain has over 400 bullrings offering from 1,500 to 20,000 seats to thousands of aficionados that reach every week to the nearest “plaza de toro” in order to watch a corrida. Such popularity enables the business to remain lucrative for breeders who raise bulls on farms throughout these countries. For instance, in Spain, national and local governments support bullfighting and the revenue it brings. However, since August 2007, state-run Spanish TV has stopped to broadcast live bullfights because of its violence and the rejection of the events by advertisers, though other regional and private channels keep broadcasting it with good audience.

Tourist companies also promote bullfighting through packages including visits to a bullfight and reservations to affiliated hotels, boosting the economic income generated by the shows. In the area of the U.S.-Mexico frontier, the impact of tourist industry is particularly perceptible in border cities such as Tucson or El Paso where U.S. citizens frequently come to watch bullfights. Analysts comment that without American tourism, Mexican border rings would be almost empty and the industry in the area would collapse.

In the meantime, bullfighting beneficiates from the support of large companies such as Corona beer or Pepsi Cola although by promoting the events, these companies become vulnerable to protest and boycotts. In the United States, activists stoutly target North American corporations that used to sponsor Mexican bullfights such as Pepsi Cola which was forced to pull down its advertisement from Mexican bullrings after intense pressure from SHARK and other groups. Many companies are following the path opened by Pepsi Cola in order to avoid customer complaints though denying they do it under the pressure of animal-rights groups.

At last, even if over time the goriness of the fight has been reduced by several regulations, the interest in bullfighting is waning with the number of bullrings rapidly dwindling. Factors eroding the popularity of bullfighting in Spain and Latin countries are mainly due to globalization and include cultural and economic modernization, mass appeal sources of entertainment such as television, movie theaters and video games, and the increasingly popularity of soccer.

Mastery vs. mass appeal… sacrificing the moment of truth?

One can understand then, the reason why the Mexican bullfight impresario Don Bull Productions decided to arrange totally bloodless fights in Las Vegas. Rather than struggling with animal-right activists and American audiences’ sensitiveness, the organizators make sure that the show is appealing to a large audience. As a matter of fact, the promoters said that the bullfight held in Las Vegas ahead of Mexican Independence Day drew a crowd of hundreds to assist to the non-lethal show.

Bloodless bullfighting isn’t new, not even in Las Vegas where a similar event used to take place in 1965 at Las Vegas Convention Center. The idea of a bloodless corrida can allow this art to reach a larger audience and sizeable sums of money by avoiding animal-rights attacks, but one can’t help wondering if in sparing the bull we are not scarifying the essential nature of the bullfight. Indeed, the risk of prohibiting blood during the bullfight is to turn the traditional art of bullfighting into a sorry tourist performance. The matadors are supposed to bring their mastery to American audiences only disposing of Velcro-coated stiks to stimulate stabbing the bull without actually harming it.

This imminent solution comes from a noble intention – to spare the bull - but can in fact have a paradoxical outcome: the matador, still supposed to approach the bull closely during the bullfight takes greater risk of a goring. "It's more dangerous than regular bullfighting" commented Edward Silva of Don Bull Productions, the event's sponsor, because the bull is not weakened or slowed down by injuries, and it can charge the bullfighter at anytime. For instance, the “estocada”, which is the moment where the bullfighter is expected to dispatch the bull by severing its aorta with a single stroke of his sword, is known as the “moment of truth” and is very dangerous for the matador who has to step directly into bull’s horns to give the final blow.

Moreover, taking the blood out of the bullfight can draw off much of the drama inherent to this art. The traditional aspect of bullfighting isn’t about having fun at tormenting an animal or endeavoring to prove human superiority over the bull. The corrida is about the tension created between the man and a worthy adversary such as the bull, or “toro bravo”, the apprehension that fills the ring when the bull comes out of its box, vehement with a flower pinned to its withers and the anxiety that overwhelm the audience at the moment of the estocada.

In the traditional corrida, the matador demonstrates his mastery of the art by courageously challenging the animal and skillfully delivering the fatal blow. Taking out the blood of the fights prevents him from anticipating the bull´s reactions and unbalances the dance between the man and the animal. Those who understand the beauty of this art know that only a perfectly mastered estocada allows the matador to achieve with triumph the destiny of the bull raised to fight and mark with his stroke the complicity that links him to the bull: the same bravery against the danger of death, in an allegory of human fight against its fate.

Marie Barriere