April 19, 2009
(CBS) Cayetano has been severely injured several times this season, so he's not in very good shape. He's got a bum knee, his wrist hurts, and he's still recovering from a goring in his backside he received a few weeks ago. And he was about to fight another bull.
Bullfighting's Blood Brothers
60 Minutes Interviews A Star Matador, Who Is Then Nearly Killed In The Ring
Just before he left the room, he got dressed for a day's work, helped into his glimmering suit of lights - an outfit just like the one his father and grandfather wore
"Terrible question, but when you leave the hotel room, does it occur to you that you might not come back?" Simon asks.
"Always," Cayetano admits. "That's the last moment we have by ourselves before going to the ring."
And then Cayetano began his long solitary walk. His first contact would not be with bulls, but with throngs of admirers who lied in wait. He tried to stay focused through all this. It's not easy.
Inside the ring, there's music and a procession - the Spanish passion for pageantry. Then came the signal that the ritual is about to begin: Cayetano’s suit of lights sparkled in the fading sun. Now, it was just between him and the bull - the moment every matador waits for.
"It has to do with the fact that you're closer to death that makes you feel more alive," Cayetano says.
Closer to death? In the ring, Cayetano is dancing with death. He brings the bull closer and closer as he executes a sequence of passes. He arches his back, as the horns pass inches from his chest. It is a ballet with a bull.
"You're risking your life and, of course, he's risking his," Cayetano says.
"But his life is over. That's a foregone conclusion," Simon points out.
"But in my situation, I can die, too. So we create this real personal connection and feeling between us," Cayetano explains.
Asked what he means by a personal connection, the matador says, "Well, you kind of have like a connection, a conversation with gestures, with time, with movement that you kind of lose reality. And you don't care anymore about your physical existence."
After the fight, the crowd waved white handkerchiefs. That is Spanish applause. It signalled that Cayetano deserved a prize, which he got. But the jubilation was short lived: another bull got a hold of one of Cayetano's assistants, got a horn into his leg and tossed him in the air.
He was rushed to the infirmary; every bullring has one. This is what every matador dreads, watching one of his men get gored. His femoral artery was been severed. He would live but he may not walk again.
Cayetano and the rest of his troupe had to move on. There was a fight the following night. This is the way matadors travel.
Produced by Michael Gavshon and Paul Bellinger
© MMVIII, CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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See all 142 CommentsI too saw bullfights in Colombia until my early 20s, so I know what it is to see and experience a bullfight. The problem is that since the late 60s, bullfighting became a billion dollar industry, and this caused the bull rings, breeders, and matadors to corrupt the ritual. I?ve gone behind the scenes in Colombia, Mexico and Spain and have seen how the bulls are deliberately weakened all in the interest of protecting the matador.
The bull?s horns are filed slightly to disorient the charged, the water is spiked with sulfur to induce diarrhea and dehydration, the hoofs are dipped in acid causing the bull to continually move throughout the ring (triggering the spectator to mistake this for ferocity), the eyes are rubbed with Vaseline to further reduced its vision, sand bags are hanged from the neck for hours to weakened the neck muscles, and so on. Now days, when the bull enters he ring, he is constantly falling, landing on the knees of his two from legs (in fact, you can see this on the segment when Cayetano was gored as he misstep backwards; the bull landed on his two front legs). Now, during my father?s time, bulls this weak would not have been tolerated, but today since the spectators are mostly tourist, no one complains.
The bashing towards 60 minutes are valid. Bob Simon has given the bullfighting industry a 20 minute free infomercial. There was no attempt to describe how he bull is adulterated behind the scenes to weaken the animal and to give maximum protection to the matador. There was nothing educational about this segment, just contributing to the brainwashing of naïve tourist to continue to fund this corrupt bloody ritual.
-- Tuliothx (For some reason my login name is showing blank on the postings)
First of all, bullfighting is not art. While there is much artistic expression in bullfighting with the music, the choreographed maneuvers, the elaborate dress, there is no artistic value in watching a team of 6 men armed with lances, daggers, knifes, and swards killing on an already weaken animal. If we are to call this art, then he butcher in the slaughter house is also an artist, the organizers of dog fighting or CockFighting are also artist ?- a ridicules statement.
Let?s call bullfighting for what it is, a bloody sacrificial ritual. A ritual to kill an animal in the most cowardly and brutal way for he sake of entertainment.
Second, art is a creative process, not a destructive. It is supposed to express ideas and interpretations of the human spirit. A ritual that seeks to destroy an animal for entertainment does not classify as art.
It is just a sacrificial ritual.
-- Tuliothx (For some reason my login name is showing blank on the postings)
You misinterpret my reasoning for the Michener quote, as I personally do not find bullfighting either unnecessarily cruel, nor brutal. For true cruelty to animals one need go no further that the hugh "farms" that raise the food for millions of McWhatever eaters.
More than sport, bullfighting is an art, one that ends in death, yes; but certainly the bull in the arena stands a better chance than those in the abbatoir...
I had also hoped that by quoting Michener, rather than, say, Hemingway, I might provoke a more measured adversarial response than the posted rants of most of those opposed to the sport.
Your response quoting Albert Schweitzer is the sort of dialogue needed...
estoque
As one of America's greatest authors, James A. Michener, once said, "Of course, bullfighting has elements of brutality, but so does surgery, hunting, and the income tax."
Estoque
Please let the bull win the next fight and then ban bull fighting all together!
Thank you.
i am so inspired and proud of the overwhelming compassion and intelligence displayed by those opposing cruelty. thank you to all the posters who speak so movingly for those without a voice - it looks like almost 98% of posters (or more) are on the side of kindness!!!!!!
i would love a reply from 60 minutes - are you there??? - showing that they maybe get it, that they may be capable of learning and becoming better and that they WILL take the suggestions of many posters here and tell the truth about bullfighting and from here on out, choose the side of kindness, enlightenment and courage opposed to the side of cultural cruelty and cult of personality and evil.
This is NOT a Culture, a Sport or in any Way Cool-its cruel, barbaric, sadistic and perverted!!!!!
ITS DETESTABLE FOR ANYONE WHO IS HUMANE-everyone supporting THIS is a MURDERER, TORTURER and a HEARTLESS and SOULLESS MONSTER!!!!
- Mark Twain -
What is wrong with all the human beings who are calling this a "sport"? Are they blind and are they sitting on their brains...every righteous human being, the so called thinking person, KNOW that this is willfully torture, causing suffering and tremendous pain!
Animals are sentient beings just like we humans and they can feel pain too.
It is a bloody shame that Spain and some other countries are tolerating such an abuse, allowing this to happen with an animal.
How would YOU feel when I do these things to you, instead of the bull...calling this a sport...and I will pay you for your performance in the ring...
When this is done to a dog or a cat, then it is called "torture"...what is the difference!!
Quote: "There is no religion without love, and people may talk as much as they like about their religion, but if it does not teach them to be good and kind to animals as well as man it is all a sham.?
--Anna Sewell--
What IS relatively new is that stuffy old antiquated Judeo-Christian thing, (that gave us such worn out ideas as human rights and for that matter humane treatment of animals!).
Think a bit............your bias is showing. -219madison
Perhaps a show on the horrors behind these traditions would be appropriate.
Claudine Erlandson, Seattle
On Monday, the court agreed to decide whether depictions of cruelty to animals should join obscenity and fighting words as speech unworthy of constitutional protection.
?People need to lighten up. Spain is a great country, with a lot of history and traditions. This was an interesting story with charismatic personalities. If you don't like bullfighting, then don't watch it.?
Indeed, Spain is a great country with a long history and traditions. But that is not the point. The point is that if 60 minutes had a piece to glorify dog fighting in Japan or cockfighting in Virginia, then we as viewers have every right to watch it and complain about the brutality of these blood rituals. The history of 60 minutes has been to present both side of an issue, but what Bob Simon did was to present the fluffy side of bullfighting and disregarded the reality behind the scenes (bulls are given sulfur to induce diarrhea and dehydration, are beaten to sap their energy, their horns are shaved to disorient them, and Vaseline is rubbed into their eyes to blurred their poor eye sight even further).
?But to condemn it as cruelty if you are someone who enjoys eating beef is absolutely hypocritical, considering that these bulls enjoy an infinitely more rewarding life and honorable death than any of the cows that create the hamburgers and steaks that millions of Americans eat everyday. If you are a vegetarian, then post away. If you eat beef, then look in a mirror.?
The notion that death to the bull in the ring is better than death in the slaughter house is a classic bullfighting fallacy. Clearly there is a difference between killing an animal for food and killing and animal for entertainment. It?s incomprehensible why the ceremonious slow painful death of a bull in the ring by thrusting, poking, stabbing, and jabbing the animal with lances, barbed darts, swords, and daggers for 20 minutes is more noble and honorable than a quick, sterile death in the slaughter house. In the end, how does honor server the bull (a human term that obviously the animal can't understand) when it is tortured to death in the ring?
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