El fin de la fiesta

Bullfighting has distanced itself from society as much as society has distanced itself from bullfighting. All sorts of misunderstandings mediate between the one and the other. Perhaps the most controversial is the political one, because bulls are used as an argument for discord in the identity cauldron. And perhaps the most unusual is the environmental one, since the hostility of environmentalism is not explained when the bulls represent a territory of exception and formidable conservation. The bullfighting crisis is not new. It is part of its nature, but it is true that the coronavirus pandemic has deteriorated and questioned the viability of the event as we know it or as it has survived. Bulls need an exercise in honesty and transparency. Another question is that bullfighting represents sufficient reasons to scandalize a society that denies death, rites. A secularized and aseptic society that entrusts itself to accidental heroes and that abjures hierarchy, masculinity and extreme creative manifestations. The great paradox is that bulls are perceived as a stale and old-fashioned phenomenon when they represent transgression and the avant-garde. The cause is not lost. Furthermore, prohibitionist dogmas, political harassment and the sublimation of colorless, odorless and insipid societies make bullfighting a space of resistance and discomfort that make it more attractive than ever. The bulls put society in front of its taboos and its anguish. From so much wanting to ban themselves and treating themselves with hypocrisy, they have become subversive, although they have never stopped being so. This essay delves into the reasons for the disagreement. The title may be twilight, but between the lines it proposes a hopeful ending.