Bullfighting... bullshit

The sweet news!

I am absolutely fucking THRILLED to hear this news. Bullfighting is something that makes me want to vomit and it's always felt vaguely like internalized racism that a number of Spanish people would claim this barbarism as part of their cultural heritage.

Bullfighting is often represented as a Disney-esque playtime between a matador and a bull, but the reality of this practice is actually quite sickening. Bulls are brought into a ring (often with vaseline rubbed into their eyes to disorient and blind them) where they are baited, tormented, cut and stuck with spears. The matador's function is to excite the bull with a brightly coloured cape until it is close enough for the matador to stab it with spears. This continues until the bull is so fatigued from blood loss that it collapses, at which point the matador beheads it with a knife.

Sadly, due in part to the media representations of this as a 'harmless' tease akin to a circus-act, rarely is anything done about it. No one seems to know what exactly bull fighting is. Thankfully, now that it is banned in Catalonia and is getting some legitimate and accurate media attention, perhaps it will become a larger issue.