The bullfighter activist was a woman breaking up a male fantasy

[Karmadillo]

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/aug/25/bullfighter-activist-woman-male-fantasy-protester-bullring

The bullfighter activist was a woman breaking up a male fantasy
Jonathan Jones
A female protester who jumped into a bullring to comfort a dying animal was an intruder into the masculine world of blood lust and glorified violence

She bends down to comfort the dying bull. She holds its horns in a loving and tender farewell to a creature slaughtered for sport. As the matador in his finery looks on helplessly at his moment of triumph being spoiled, officials try to pull animal rights activist Virginia Ruiz away from the beast to whom she brings solidarity and compassion. Did the beast know? Did this moment of mercy make a difference to it? And how long can Spain keep using bulls as sacrificial victims in archaic sports and festivals?

This dramatic protest in the bullring was one more incident during a summer of no fewer than 10 fatalities in the bull-running events that are popular in many Spanish towns. Bulls have been mythified in many cultures since the stone age. They appear in cave paintings as potent, supernatural horned beings. During the Minoan civilisation in Crete, young men leaped over bulls as part of a game that may also have been a religious ritual. This Minoan obsession with bulls is remembered in the Greek myth of the Minotaur, the half-bull, half-human monster that lived beneath the royal palace.

"Nobody explored the mythology of bulls and bullfighting in more detail than Picasso. To him, it was tragedy"

It is easy to imagine why early societies revered the powerful, dangerous, grandiose horned beast that is the bull, but much harder to understand why the animals are still – in effect – sacrificed in Spanish bullfights and used in primitivistic, savage bull-running rituals in Pamplona and other towns. Bullfighting was controversial in Spain as early as the 18th century, but is still apparently impossible to ban. Meanwhile, running with the bulls becomes more popular every year – this summer’s shocking spate of deaths reflects the number of young men willing to join in.

The image of a young woman leaping into the arena, making her protest and trying to console a dying bull is full of clues about the true appeal of bullfighting and bull running, and the survival of such archaic rites. It could hardly be clearer. What we see here is not just a protester disrupting a blood sport. It is very obviously a woman breaking up a male fantasy.

more...

[dhill926]

1. K & R....

incredibly brave woman....and bullfighting is an abomination...

[Nye Bevan]

2. List of female bullfighters:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_female_bullfighters

[niyad]

3. such a horrific "sport" must stop. frankly, I was cheering the bulls during this past season,

as I do every season.

[niyad]

4. list of noted male bullfighters

List of bullfighters
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The following is a list of noted bullfighters:

Contents

1 Cuba
2 France
3 Ireland
4 Mexico
5 Portugal
6 Puerto Rico
7 Peru
8 Spain
9 United States
10 United Kingdom
11 Fictional Bullfighters
12 See also
13 References

Cuba

José Marrero

France

Christian Montcouquiol, Nimeño II

Ireland

Carleton Bass

Mexico
Humberto Flores

Alejandro Amaya
Carlos Arruza
Jaime Bravo
Guillermo Capetillo
Eloy Cavazos
Silverio Pérez
Carmelo Torres

Portugal

José Falcão
Luis Rouxinol
João Branco Núncio

Puerto Rico

Ernesto Pastor

Peru

Conchita Cintrón

Spain
Pedro Romero, by Francisco Goya
Francisco Montes Reina - Paquiro
Enrique Ponce

Alfonso Cela, Celita
Antonio Ordóñez
Cayetano Ordóñez
Cayetano Rivera Ordóñez
Curro Romero
Emilio Muñoz
Enrique Ponce
Enrique Robles
Francisco Montes Reina, Paquiro
Francisco Rivera, Paquirri
Francisco Rivera Ordóñez
Ignacio Sánchez Mejías
Jairo Miguel
Javier Conde
José Delgado, Pepe-Hillo
José Miguel Arroyo Delgado, Joselito
José Ortega Cano
Juan José Padilla,
Juan Belmonte
Julián López Escobar, El Juli
Julio Aparicio Díaz
Luis Miguel Dominguín
Manuel Benítez, El Cordobés
Manuel Laureano Rodríguez Sánchez, Manolete
Rafael Guerra Bejarano, Guerrita
Rafael Gómez Ortega, El Gallo
José Gómez Ortega, Josélete

United States

Sidney Franklin
John Fulton [1]

United Kingdom

Frank Evans, England
Henry Higgins (bullfighter) England
Alexander Fiske-Harrison, England

[niyad]

5. pity we do not have this, instead:

Bull-leaping

The Bull-Leaping Fresco from the Great Palace at Knossos, Crete
The bull-leaper, an ivory figurine from the palace of Knossos, Crete. The only complete surviving figure of a larger arrangement of figures. This is the earliest three dimensional representation of the bull leap. It is assumed that thin gold pins were used to suspend the figure over a bull.

Bull-leaping (also taurokathapsia, from Greek ????????ά???[1]) is a motif of Middle Bronze Age figurative art, notably of Minoan Crete, but also found in Hittite Anatolia, the Levant, Bactria and the Indus Valley.[2] It is often interpreted as a depiction of a ritual performed in connection with bull worship. This ritual consists of an acrobatic leap over a bull; when the leaper grasps the bull's horns, the bull will violently jerk his neck upwards giving the leaper the momentum necessary to perform somersaults and other acrobatic tricks or stunts.



Iconography

Younger (1995) classifies bull-leaping depictions as follows:

Type I: the acrobat approaches the bull from the front, grabs the horns, and somersaults backwards
Type II: the acrobat approaches the bull from the front, dives over the horns without touching them and pushes himself with his hands from the bull's back into a backward somersault
Type III: the acrobat is depicted in mid-air over the bull's back, facing the same way as the animal

The Type III depictions are often found in Late Minoan IIIB artwork (14th to 13th centuries BC). Frescoes in Tell el-Dab'a (Avaris, Egypt) dating to the 18th dynasty (16th to 14th centuries BC) show similar designs besides genuinely Egyptian motifs, for which reason they have usually been ascribed to Minoan-taught Egyptian craftsmen (rather than to Minoan ones directly). They could also have been included as palace decorations because the palace was built for an Aegean princess diplomatically married to a Hyksos pharaoh.[3]

Other examples of bull-leaping scenes have been found in Syria, such as a cylinder seal impression found in level VII at Alalakh (Old Babylonian period, 19th or 18th century BC) showing two acrobats performing handstands on the back of a bull, with an ankh sign placed between them, another seal belonging to a servant of Shamshi-Adad I (c. 1800 BC), besides other Syrian examples. Furthermore a relief vase was discovered in Hüseyindede in 1997, dating to the Hittite Old Kingdom (18th to 15th centuries BC).

. . .

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bull-leaping

[Syzygy321]

6. Bullfighting: can't approve of it, but don't want it stamped out.

Because, history and pageantry and Spain.

As for the people who get gored: that's a good thing. Helps even the score.

[kcr]

8. If you don't want it stamped out, how are you not approving it?

That makes no sense whatsoever.

And history is full of horrible things that were conducted with lots of pageantry that were rightfully stopped. Would you like to see all that horrible suffering brought back? I would hope not.

[Syzygy321]

9. Well, I can't approve of the daredevil skateboarding

that some local teens do on a nearby hilly road, (because they might get hurt, and theyre kinda annoying), but when I think of the alternative - cops hanging out on that road and fining or threatening the kids - I lean toward supporting the kids' right to take their chances.

I can't approve of my friend's affair, but since I understand the reasons for it I don't want the guy to break it off and break her heart.

Lots of things don't strike me as black and white.

[NuclearDem]

7. Why is this savage fucking "sport" allowed to continue?

Jesus Christ.