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Bull's eye view >> Pro and con on the bullfight experience Photo by Jason Felker NAY OLÉ!
by JACQUIE CHARLTON
Bullfighting is not a showpiece of animal cruelty. Each of us can think of a thousand instances where animals are treated worse right here in Montreal, throughout their entire lives, not just for a few minutes in a ring. What bullfighting is, in my mind, is the ultimate fascist spectacle. It is the simple elementary oppression of the thing that we Canadians don't like. Five minutes into its turn in the ring, tongue-lolling and diminished, each bull reminded me of nothing more formidable than a large retarded man. Those people who made it their business to prance around him and make him mad seemed perverse. As a culture, Canadians are uncomfortable with the idea of seeing any weaker thing routed and ridiculed in public, be it animal or human. That is why they stayed away. And that is why I found Plumbly's satisfaction a bit smug. When his group attacks the oppression we've all grown used to as brilliantly as it attacks the foreign, sequined kind, then I'll cheer.
YEA OLÉ!
by PHILIP PREVILLE When asked about bullfighting as a Spanish and Portuguese tradition, spokesperson Andrew Plumbly of Global Action Network offered the following comparison: "Slavery used to be part of our culture too, but we have moved on." Alas, no culture in the world has moved beyond the practice of animal slavery, otherwise known as "husbandry." Symbolically, bullfights are husbandry rituals in which humans tame the beast with a combination of charm and raw power. And in this world of livestock theatre, last Saturday's bloodless corrida at the Big O can only be seen as a comedy--and a wickedly funny one to boot, bearing more resemblance to a Looney Tunes cartoon than anything Hemingway ever wrote. Little Portuguese men in tights and jester's hats rode bulls' heads. Others hitched water-ski rides across the sandy ring by its tail. The bulls got their licks in, too. All told, they came out of the ordeal with as much dignity as the humans: it took eight men and much flailing about to wrestle each bull into submission. It all made the Calgary Stampede look like high art.
And if, as a society, we don't see fit to ban the Stampede, who are we to ban a gore-free corrida? |
I ran into Andrew Plumbly, the deadly serious young man behind the anti-bullfight campaign, on my way into the spectacle Saturday night. He told me with some satisfaction that ticket sales had been bad; promotor Jean-Louis Nadeau, who'd wanted a bullfight in Montreal for so long, was going to take a bath. Was it the animal cruelty issue, and the protesters' relentless campaign, that kept the public away? Yes and no.