Beefcake at the Corrida: Photos of Tauros and Toreros in Acho 2008
- Matador David Galan, who stars in the Nov. 2 corrida
Raging bulls, elaborate torture rituals, hot sun and sand, seriously handsome guys in skin-tight outfits skewering animals through the aeorta: Lima’s Feria de Acho bullfight season (Nov. 2 – 23, 2008) showcases raw, in-your-face Spanish-style bullfighting, and the Peruvian crowds love it.
- Spanish matador Uceda Leal, of Madrid, who fights in the first Acho corrida, Nov. 2
It’s death and seduction and sadism all wrapped in the stiff trappings of Spanish colonialism: arcane rules, classist seating arrangements, trumpet calls, elegant brocaded jackets.
The event exerts a weird, insidious fascination on some foreigners who might otherwise never be caught dead (lol) at a ritual animal slaughter.
Just purchasing a ticket and braving the journey to the bullring in Rimac (one of the worst neighborhoods in Lima) marks a new chapter in a person’s sentimental education, to quote Flaubert.
To step through the gates of Acho is to admit, I’m interested in and maybe turned on by this stuff.
To remain in your seat up to the final estocada (stab through the bull’s heart) is to witness, first-hand, the drawn-out sufferings of a magnificent, 2,000-pound animal.
Most people in the stands don’t give a rat’s tail about the suffering. They love the blood and gore; they cheer it on.
- Fernando Roca Rey sports his spangly get-up for Nov. 2
In fact, every physical body inside the ring–the bulls, the matadors, the picadores and the sword page, the horses–is fair game for a goring. Blood will be spilled, male blood. The spectacle reeks of barbarism and unhinged virility: massive horned bulls vs. handsome, fit men in the prime of their lives (who conspiciously abstain from wearing an athletic supporter under their tights).
I know there are a few female toreras, but, really, bullfighting is a sportfor los machos.
It’s beefcake-o-rama, Spanish style.
In other words, it’s hell for anyone with a conscience.
- Peruvian torero Fernando Roca Rey, seen in Acho 2006
I don’t follow the sport of bullfighting. I could read up on the matadors who will be fighting next Sunday and echo the opinions of bullfighting afficionados, but I’m not going there. I don’t need to do research to predict the outcome of Sunday’s fights: the bulls will lose.
Six bulls, two for each matador, will die.
People don’t usually think of the bulls that are sacrificed as individual combatants. The stars of the event are the matadors — dark, often good-looking men whose names (El Fandi, El Cid, etc.) send goosebumps up the spines of the initiated.
But the bulls who give their lives during the spectacle? They remain anonymous, just part of the herd.
I’d like to challenge that tradition.
Here are photos of the eight bulls who will be offered for sacrifice during the first corrida on November 2. (I believe only six of the eight will enter the ring.) As millenia-old sacrificial custom dictates, each is a magnificent specimen. According to the bullfighting portal Afición, the source for these photos, the bulls come from an elite bull herd in Colombia, in the department of Antioquia.
I think they are rather beautiful, for bulls. It seems pointless to kill them, even if they are going to be eaten afterward (yes, really).
In fairness, they deserve nice, long retirements in a pasture somewhere, like Ferdinand. However, their fates are not in my hands.
Certainly, they deserve to be given real names, not “No. 42” and “No. 973.” It’s the least that human beings can do for animals that are going to spill their blood for an afternoon’s entertainment.
Any suggestions?
- No. 973
- No. 13
- No. 42
- No. 52
- No. 960
- NO. 961
- No. 5
- No. 962
source:
Barbara
I am an American writer who lived in Lima for seven years (2007-2014), where I covered Andean traditions, melting glaciers and daily life in the capital for Miami Herald, MSNBC and Huffington Post. I now live and work in northern Florida where I champion climate change advocacy and compassionate, affordable eldercare.
10 Comments
el "kibitzer"
barb,
at least they die with dignity,
as you know, if the bull has fought bravely, and by petition of the public or the matador, the president of the plaza may grant the bull an indulto. this is when the bull’s life is spared and allowed to leave the ring alive and return to the ranch where it came from.
guess who i am voting for?
chau for now,
el kibitzer
Barb
I wish they granted indultos more often. From what El Fotografo tells me, they’re pretty rare. I don’t know what extraordinary thing a bull needs to do in the ring to sway the president to make an exception.
Vladimir
Thank you for the link
Alejandra
hola fer tu fotos estan lindas soy de chota y te admiro muchooooo eres mi idolo y soy muy afisionada al mundo de los toros sabes quieroe studiar periodismo en tauromaquia
Barb
Ale — I didn’t take the photos, so I can’t accept the compliments. Sorry! “Idolo.” hmmm. Are you perhaps poking fun at me?
Koca
Funny story… I used to like las corridas and watched them on sundays in my black and white tv… (yes, I am that old), I used to admired the Toreros on how brave and handsome and elegant moves they made… until I went to La Plaza de Acho to see one corrida “en vivo y en directo”…. and I got sick… I “forgot” that the blood was red…I guess in my brain I knew it has to be blood there,but since I never saw it in color, I never repair on that little detail…. ha ha.. That afternoon I did not see how brave or how elegant the toreros made their elegant moves, I just saw the red blood.
And on top of that, that day one of the bulls refuse to die fast (maybe el torero was not good enough) and made awful sounds while the guy with a knife was trying to stick it in the back of its head… (I don’t remember the tauromaquian terms) so, you can imagine that this was the last time I saw a corrida de toros.
About naming the bulls, I guess it will be too personal, “today el torero cut the ears and the tail of Adolfo(the bull)”
But, in Cajamarca in the Hacienda Colpa (I don’t remember well the name) the cows has names and they go to the milking place as they hear their names.
Barb
Oh, Koca, I can understand why you tossed your cookies at the corrida. There is a world of difference between seeing a bullfight on TV or YouTube, and being a spectator at the event, as you found out. Thanks for sharing your experience. I’m sure there are many readers who wonder how they might react at the bullfights.
As I found out, a person can’t predict how he or she will feel. I heard of one woman, the wife of an English ambassador, who passed out the first time she saw a bull stabbed. She had dressed up in a nice outfit and was sitting there in her private box, but when the moment happened, she just fainted.
I myself didn’t faint. I had a bunch of reactions, though. The first bull I saw killed was a 2-year-old, who was a baby really. It was so heart-wrenching to see him stabbed — I felt a pain in my own heart. The blood didn’t affect me, but the movements of the poor creature were dreadful to watch.
Seeing the bigger bulls killed (I saw three all told) was less heart-wrenching and just plain yucky. The deaths seemed senseless to me. I would have been happy to watch the torero do his moves and end with both toro and torero walking out of the ring. But I guess that’s why I’m not an aficionado.
Oh, yeah — the bulls did have names. They posted them on a blackboard. One was named Jalapeno.
Sarg Gravert
It is part of the culture. It’s better than watching 2 fighters confined in a ring with the intent to beat each other’s brains out. The animal is used for food.
victor
to the American in Lima…
how about the Hockey games in your country? Americans love to go to these games, not to see the art of well trained skaters but to see them fight and watch their teeth and blood spilled all over the ice…
How about the sunday ritual of American football and how the sound of clashing helmets is atenuated for the crowds at home. Research has proven how the amount of head hits and concussions relate to brain injuries in football players…
How about the new American craze IBF or IVF, where two ‘gladiators’ enter the ring and beat the shit of each other?
Dear American in Lima, when one is a guest in another country, you have to respect their cultural idiosyncracies…
Barb
You’re right, Victor, that US Americans love rough sports. I would never deny that or defend some of the violent “games” that people play there, although killing animals is not part of legal sports (Spanish style bullfighting and cockfighting are prohibited there).
I do try to respect the cultural idiosyncracies of Peru, as you can see in the other blog posts I’ve written on bullfighting. (Look under bullfighting category.) I try to keep an open mind about it but given how politically polarized bullfighting is, it’s hard to not offend someone. The anti-taurinos are offended that I don’t write pieces saying, Ban bullfighting, and the taurinos think I’m a wimp or culturally insensitive. Oh, well. Can’t please them all.:)
At the risk of offending yet another group, I’ll say that I think it is up to Peruvians to figure out the future of bullfighting in this country. As a foreigner, I claim the right to comment on the complexities and contradictions of la fiesta brava in Peru, but this issue is one that Peruvians must resolve since it concerns their national identity. Perhaps the pro-taurinos should sit down and examine the objections of the anti-taurinos and see if there is any merit to these. Is it possible to reach a compromise? I think so, but I believe that neither side wants to budge an inch so I don’t think it will happen soon.
For my own part, I think that Peru has some much bigger animal-rights problems to work out that overshadow bullfighting at the moment. That is not to take anything away from the anti-taurinos’ point that the bulls suffer greatly in the ring and that the picadores stabbing the bulls throughout the spectacle is excessively cruel. (After you see this happen to 3 bulls in a row, it gets a bit pointless, in IMO.) But Acho only takes place for four weekends a year, with six bulls slaughtered in each corrida. 24 bulls.
Okay, I’m gonna take cover now as the anti-taurinos pelt me for being a pragmatic.