I just watched an impressive force of nature be reduced
to a pitiful creature. The bull entered the ring and even in a café hundred of
kilometers away, I could feel its presence. It rippled with muscles, it was
power. When writers write of the awesome force of nature they usually mean
storms, oceans, and indomitable mountains. I had never seen a beast that had
impressed me with the same sense of amazement until this day. I have seen many
creatures large and small, in cages, in zoos, in pictures or movies. I have
been impressed by their size, their uniqueness and intrigued by their
existence, I have been frightened by their numbers, their alien nature, their
ability to bite, scratch and poison. The verb “to gore” had never meant much to
me beyond the vague image of entrails trailing from horns. I had read of the
thick padding given to the horses of the picadors,
the numerous assistants of the matador
and I had always thought that a corrido
de torros, what we unfittingly call in English, a bullfight, was grossly
unfair. A team of men with swords or spears and a horse against a bull. Steel
and human intelligence against horns and bestial brute force. After watching a corrido I realize that the match-up is
more even than I thought.
No man should ever attempt to fight a bull alone and after
seeing a bull ram into a thick horse and nearly knocking it down, as well as a
bull flip a matador, the concept of
grabbing a bull by its horns seems to be insanity. There is a reason bull
riders in rodeos only stay on for a minute or so, nature is far stronger than a
man. Even when bleeding from multiple stab wounds, a bull is still not
something to be taken lightly. Seeing a matador
stand in front of the bull, with sword and cape at his sides is a striking
picture of man’s struggle with nature. This defining moment seems to be the
point where sentiments change. The matador
challenges the bull with his cape, and leads him around, tiring him out. Man’s
struggle with nature becomes man’s dominance of nature. He tauntingly shows his
back to the bull that at this time is too weak to continue. The matador continues to show his cape to
the bull and urge it to continue. This task becomes more and more difficult as
it becomes obvious the bull isn’t here to fight. The bull hasn’t trained in
preparation for his final day. The bull doesn’t pause to try and summon up the
courage and strength to keep fighting and hopes of “wining.” The bull stops
because he is tired, confused and trying to stay standing while his blood
spills down his back. This isn’t a boxing match, where it is as much a battle
of wills as it is of strength, where the fighters train physically and mentally
for their match in hopes of winning glory and wealth. The bull’s only
motivation to keep going is to protect his life, a vain effort. There is no
pity, there is no surrender, there is just death at the end of the corrido.
Before the end, when the matador
decides the bull can’t go on and it just stands there breathing heavily,
the matador takes out the espada de luz, the sword of light, to
prepare for the finale. The matador lightly
stabs the bull in his snout so that he lowers his head for the matador to cleanly end this “performance.”
With several spears in his flesh as well as a sword, the bull lowers his horns
and looks at the cape of his executioner. With a quick stab, the matador finishes and the bull collapses,
finished.
It’s hard to say what a corrido
de torros is. It is not a sport
or an art, and the Spaniards know this. The reviews of the corridos are in their own section of the newspaper. It’s not a
dance, although I’ve heard it described as man’s dance with death. Nor is it a
performance although there is an audience. To perform implies a sort of
falsehood, a mimicry or impression. The only thing fake in this is the idea
that the bull might not be dead at the end, the promise of fairness. Although
occasionally the bull is spared, it never wins.
This is a demonstration; A demonstration of man’s dominance
of nature. Before when I thought of that phrase I thought of opposable thumbs
and of “technology” in the broadest of terms; of us resisting nature and us
using it to do our will, of medicines distilled from rare plants protecting us
from Nature’s illnesses, of pets, drinking milk and eating meat. I had viewed it
in terms of us living with nature, but in control of it. This is similar to
pollution as it is a destruction of nature, but the difference is our intent.
We do not pollute to destroy Nature, it’s a lamentable side effect. When the matador enters the arena, he is there to
kill Nature. Not for food, not to protect himself, but for glory, money and to
show that he can.
This is a demonstration, a half-hour long embodiment of
Human history. It is a lesson. One man could not survive against a bull. We
know this; we use tools, and planning. In this demonstration we even the odds
against nature, we become its equal. But then we continue our dominance, our
taunting, and our demonstration of our power. We make it struggle when it is
spent for our amusement, and then when we can get no more from it; we finish it
and then unceremoniously drag its carcass out of the ring with a team of
horses. If it was a good “show,” they cut off the ears and tail to award to the
matador.
The corrido is no
crueler than our history.
The bull suffers and horses with blinders are put at risk,
but the sickening part is the enjoyment of the crowd. The sadism of it. My
family has a photo of graffiti on a mural of a matador and bull, the graffiti reads “Arte y sadismo no son lo
mismo”- Art and sadism are not the same. That is clear, this is not art. This
is not something to be watched and enjoyed for its beauty, nor should matadors be praised for their skill. The
enjoyment of the crowd, the applause when the matador deftly performs a maneuver is repulsive. Before I came to
Spain, my grandfather told me the quote that, “the only beast in the arena is
the crowd.” That is far too true.
But the first half can and should be enjoyed, we should be
proud of making ourselves even with the might of nature. The second part is when
the crowd should fall into a somber silence as they marvel at our cruelty as we
make Nature crumble at our feet.
At the end, I have a sense of near religious solemnity, akin
to the feeling while sitting shiva. A
life was lived, a great struggle occurred, there was suffering and brief
moments of triumph, and now it is over. The corrido
should not end with applause and trophies; it should end in respectful
silence.
The corrido is a
work whose two halves have different protagonists. In the beginning, Humanity
starts to attempt what seems like the impossible task of dominating nature, but
in the second half, it is Nature that struggles. In the first part, the matador and toreros should be honored as they are fighting what at first seems
to be an impossible fight. The second half the positions switch and the
dominating become dominated. Then we should not honor the matador we should honor the bull. The matador’s task is simple; he is the bringer of the inevitable. The
bull is the one struggling against that inevitability.
The matador is
skilled, that cannot be denied, but it is a skill unlike that of an actor or
dancer. It’s as a skill like meditation or fasting. It is a struggle with
nature, and the self. When the matador
gets hit by the bull, he does not come back swinging his sword in a rage, he
stands up, breathes deeply and then continues the demonstration. He doesn’t
seek to just kill the bull; he does it in a very specific way. While the
demonstration isn’t an art, there is an art to it. It’s like a surgeon. Each
slice has a purpose, their final products are different though.
I want to watch more. I am repulsed and attracted by it.
While the tradition of the corridos is
old, what it demonstrates is both ancient and timeless. It is brutal, it is
harsh and it is True. It is a glimpse into the cruelty of existence that we
don’t like to face in daily life. It is, in the barest sense of the word, Sacred.
It is a break from the Profanity which is daily life, the non-Sacred. We stop
what we do and we watch the True story of life slowly and bloodily unfold.
I don’t know if that is something we need to see. There are
great tragedies and cruelties in life and I don’t know how we should relate to
them. Should we hide them and ignore them? Should we peacefully accept them?
Should we celebrate them? Should we struggle in vain against them? I don’t
know.
I would feel wrong to pay to see it though. You should never
have to pay to connect with “the Holy” or “the Sacred.” Paying for that
experience monetizes it, it cheapens it. Putting a price on the experience
evaluates it and says what its worth. Buying a ticket to watch the event in an
arena makes it seem like a show, a performance. This, like Mass or Shabbat
services or midday prayers, is not a performance. I’m surprised that watching
it on television doesn’t cheapen the experience. I think it enhances it; you
can see the muscles on the bull ripple and the matador’s face move as he
focuses in on the task at hand. It makes television fulfill its full potential
as a medium of communication, it makes television more than the “caja idiota” – idiot box - it makes
television a window, a magic mirror. It let me be the unattached observer, not
taking part, not being part of the audience in the ring although I was an
audience member in a broader sense. It let me be outside and look in, to watch
and judge while I was free of blame and judgment. After all, I didn’t pay to
see it, I didn’t choose to see it, it just happened. It was hypnotic, and I could
only feel right leaving the café, turning away from the demonstration, when
someone changed the channel, breaking its spell.
It should not be preserved as part of the tradition of
Spain, as Flamenco or Catalan, but it should be preserved as the demonstration
of human history that it is. What should change is our perception of the event,
what unfolds on the sand is Sacred and ritualistic, what occurs on the
bleachers profanes and cheapens it.
It is a powerful experience, and a brutal thing to watch. It
should not be enjoyed like a holiday, it should be observed, like a holy day.
Recent Comments