Sunday June 27, 2010
Have you even been to a super crowded open-air market when you’re slightly hungover? I don’t suggest it. My third time at El Rastro was significantly less fun than the other two times before because my stomach still felt queasy and because I had to rush back to make it to lunch with my family. But I’m glad I did, because when I got home and told Carmen that I felt unwell (reasons left unexplained, of course) she made me some chicken noodle soup as comfort food. Chicken noodle soup as a get-well food is cross-cultural. Awww, so cute, right?
Am I the only one who thinks it’s funny that some of the girls in my program didn’t know the bulls die in a bullfight? That’s what the first group of people told us when they came back from their first bullfight during their first week in Madrid. What did they expect? That the bullfighter just waved the coloured cloth around in the bull’s face just for shiggles and gave the angered thing a carrot and a loving pat on its head, and then the fight would be over? Well, our group that day was more prepared to see the gore and the deaths.
It was quite warm at Las Ventas that day, so I was glad that Nikita took the initiative to buy us cheap seats in La Sombra (in the shade section). We hiked up into the stadium and found our seats near the top edge. And good thing we were all wearing shorts, because the seating was must more crowded than any other bleacher seating I’ve encountered before. Clambering up to our seats, we had to ask the people sitting in the seats below to scoot forward, because our feet went on their seats and their backs rested on our legs. I thankfully sat behind people who were conscientious and chose not to lean back on me.
The six bulls came out one at a time, each one getting more and more angry and ready to fight. I suspected that they were irritating them more backstage before releasing them into the arena. When the dazed and confused bull came walking through the gate into the round arena, it looked at the cheering crowd without any idea that this was its last fifteen or twenty minutes of fame. The apprentices (who would act as rodeo clowns if the main bullfighter got into trouble or had to run from the bull) irritated the bull first but waving their large pink capes in its face and disappearing behind their wall partition when the bull charged them. Once the bull got angry enough, the picador (a lancer on horseback) rode out with an wooden/plastic-armored and blindfolded horse to weaken the bull by stabbing it in between its shoulder blades until blood ran out of its wound. The picador’s stabs were not quick passes, but rather jab-and-digs. In retaliation, the bull would charge the horse, smacking loudly into the horse’s protected side with its sharp horns. The contact was the loudest thing in the bullfight. Other than that, there was no accompanying music nor shouts from the matador like those high shrieks in women tennis. The crowd clapped or cheered on occasion, but otherwise, it was the quietest spectator-sporting event I’ve ever been to (obviously, I’ve never been to a golf match). Weakened and very angry now, the bull then were agitated more by the apprentice fighters, as the banderillero charged the bull to stab barbed decorated wooden sticks into the bull’s neck muscle, running straight-on at the bull and veering off right after stabbing them in. The sticks had wrapped cloth around it, which would run red with blood from the bull’s wounds as the fight went on.
Weakened and decorated, the bull was then ready to “fight” with the matador, the human star of the show. Coming out in his traje de luces, a wonderfully sequined and vibrantly coloured costume with matching high socks and black flats, the matador first stylishly drew on the bull with his red cape, tricking it each time by letting the cloth fall lifeless by his side. The bull grew confused each time as the thing it chased suddenly lost its form as if it had a mind of its own.
Thus, the bull never really went for the people but only for the big flowing pieces of cloth that it found so irritating. After a sufficient amount of time, the matador prepared his rapier-like sword and stabbed it into the top of the bull, where its two shoulder met. Most of time, this action was the fatal act (but tougher cookies took more than a few stabs with new swords), then the bull weakly and slowly wandered to the side of the stadium, allowed its legs to fold in as if it could no longer support the weight of its body, and died. In these final moments, the fighters surrounded the bull, waving their capes and an apprentice fighter ended its misery but giving it a final jab into the base of the skull with a puntilla (a small dagger). Egged on by the cracking of a whip, a horse-drawn carriage came out to drag the body of the bull around the stadium, parading the corpse and the symbolized power of man and leaving a bloody trail in the sand, which workers would run out to rake and spread into the sand, preparing the arena for the next ignorant bull.
Although the longest and most uneventful, the first bull asked for the most attention, because everyone was there to watch it. All the tourists sat in the cheap seats, because apparently Spaniards usually pay for seats that are closer. Some American women around us couldn’t chill the fuck out and kept squealing loudly every time the bull came close to on of the fighters. They were especially vocal when the blindfolded horses got charged. Good thing they couldn’t stomach any more and left after the first bul. By the third bull, a third of our section had cleared out, either because tour groups couldn’t afford so much time at a bullfight in their itineraries or because one or two deaths were enough for pre-dinner entertainment. Moving down to better seating and getting free leather seat cushions from some people who were leaving, we stayed for all six fights.
Most of our group thought the event was too bloody for their taste, and we all felt drained after seeing so much death. I was the most cheery out of the group, trying to understand it as an essential Spanish tradition to experience. But even so, I have to admit, as interesting as all the bravo and style of the sport was, I would not go back to watch another fight. I just don’t enjoy such violent things. Wrestling and boxing matches are not fun to watch. Watching Nascar races in the hopes to see a crash is not how I want to spend an afternoon. I cringe at America’s Funniest Home Video’s trampoline montages, because I know they always end badly. The same went for the bullfight. I’d rather eat a piece of steak from one of those bulls than watch it die as the crowd silently watches on.
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