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"Osuna's bullring: Why Game of Thrones shouldn't film there"


The Dragon Demands

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http://www.westeros.org/GoT/Features/Entry/11120

It has been mooted about for awhile—ever since it was first announced that season 5 of Game of Thrones would film in Spain—that one of the locations that was under consideration was the Andalusian town of Osuna. Full of history, Osuna features some noteworthy buildings—the University of Osuna building was declared a monument, and the Colegiata church across from it is a noteworthy example of Renaissance architecture—and the arid landscape so common in Andalusia. It seems, on the face of it, an excellent location for filming scenes for the new season.

But speculation turned to one particular possible site for filming in Osuna: thePlaza de Toros of Osuna. Built in the early 1900s, it is a substantial bullring, capable of holding 6,500 specatators and has one of the largest diameters of any bullring in Spain. Many saw photos of it and immediately pronounced it a perfect location for a key sequence from A Dance with Dragons which many speculate will be part of this season. What we saw, however—and what, we think, a few others have seen—was a building whose sole reason for existence was the long-held tradition of the bullfight. Bullfighting has been romanticized by many notable persons over the years—Hemingway is an obvious example—and it continues to be a significant attraction in parts of Spain, particularly Andalusia.

Reports from Spanish language media and fan sites appear to confirm that the bullring will be used, and the mayor of Osuna is quoted remarking that the publicity the show will bring to their town “could not be bought”. Even the official Facebook page of the bullring has remarked on the rumors regarding the filming of Game of Thrones:

This may be good news for Osuna, but it’s not great news for anyone who is concerned with the welfare of animals. Bullfighting is much uglier than the romantic image often presented. Many travellers to Spain have taken in the bullfight out of morbid curiosity, or out of respect for the history and tradition, and found themselves shaken, even disgusted, by the inhumanity of it. Most focus on the brave figure of the matador with his cape, and the life-or-death dance as he challenges the bull to charge, and revel in the grace and skill involved. The death of the bull, in the popular imagination, is an afterthought, perhaps the result of a single perfect blow that instantly kills. Nothing, alas, can be further from the truth. Before the matador faces the bull, it has already been abused by the mounted lancers called picadores, who will taunt it from horseback and whenever it comes close stab at it with their lances, aiming for the hump of muscle about its neck. After them are the banderilleros, who nimbly dodge the bull’s charges as they stick barbed spined into that mass of muscle that the picadores injured.

Why there, you may ask? That area is heavy on muscle and nerves… and by repeatedly injuring it with steel blades and barbs, the bull’s ability to swing its head unpredictably becomes greatly curtailed. The bloodshed that follows pleases the crowd, but it also helps give the matador even more safety than he would have had.

When the matador comes on, the bulls are hardly fresh any longer. The matador comes on with his cape, and once he’s done enough, he attempts to kill it with a single thrust of a sword through the heart. Often, the blow misses its mark, and the bull slowly dies by choking on its own blood; images of bulls vomiting blood copiously are not uncommon. Generally, and inelegantly, his assistants then taunt it with capes, leading the bull—with two feet of steel inside of its body—swing its head and body back and forth, letting the sword cut away at its internal organs and speeding up its collapse from blood loss. In the end, often an assistant finishes the bull with multiple stabs of a knife into the head. From start to finish, about 20 minutes of such activity takes place.

You can watch a full bullfight below, to see the various steps of the process:

All of this is to say that bullfighting is an extremely inhumane bloodsport, one in which has seen the deaths of millions of bulls (and far, far fewer matadors) over the centuries. It has seen a decline in Spain, has even been banned in Catalonia, but the sport continues. Indeed, the sport continues in Osuna itself, where the annual fair in May features bullfights. Sometimes, as during the past fair, one might say the bulls get their own back, but that ignores the basic problem of abuse of an animal for sport and entertainment. A bullring is a space intended for the deliberate abuse of bulls, and three months ago the sands of the ring were spattered with the blood of bulls, just the latest victims of a long, long stream of victims going back to antiquity. Often, counter-arguments will question why one should care about bullfights and not, say, inhumane conditions at slaughterhouses. Fair question, and the answer is: of course we should care about inhumane conditions for animals anywhere.

But Game of Thrones does not film in a slaughterhouse. It is filming in a bullring, and making it a probable tourist attraction in years to come. Has the production paid to use the location? We don’t know. But Andalusia, and Osuna, courted the production precisely because of the expectation that it would be a net-profit for them when the money put into the economy by the production plus the increase in tourism expected (an increase seen by Northern Ireland and Croatia, to name two other filming locations), and the production is surely aware of this.

As we researched bullrings and bullfighting in Spain, we recognize that there are a number of organizations opposed to bullfights and have campaigned tirelessly for their end. Many are the broader, animal protection societies that are well known—the Humane Society, PETA, and World Animal Protection—as well as more bullfighting-specific movements, such as Bullfighting Free Europe. We sent a query to World Animal Protection, informing them of what’s known so far about the production’s use of the bullring, and we received this statement:

World Animal Protection is strongly opposed to bullfighting which, fortunately, is in decline in Spain. With fewer spectators than ever paying to watch this outdated and cruel ‘sport’, hiring out active bullrings to television and film production companies is another way for the sport to subsidise itself.

We ask TV and film production companies not to rent active bull rings, as this indirectly funds bullfighting; there are more and more of non-active bullrings available for hire instead.

We believe the production has made a mistake in using the bullring. While it likely makes a great deal of sense from a purely fiscal, production viewpoint, but it does so at the peril of ignoring the ethics of using such a location. By lending the added attraction of the Game of Thrones name to the bullring (and perhaps even by paying for its use), David Benioff, Dan Weiss, Frank Doelger, Carolyn Strauss—the excecutive producers—and the executives of HBO are tacitly in support of bullfighting. Given HBO’s past issues with animal welfare in relation to Luck, we hope that they will reconsider before filming in Osuna is due to take place in October. A no longer used bullring, as World Animal Protection suggests, would be a more ethical venue for filming.

What can fans do to get HBO to reconsider? Talk about the issue among yourselves, and let people know about it by posting, mailing, sharing, tweeting—whatever you can do. And finally, let HBO and the production know about how you feel, through social media or contact addresses. Who knows? It may help.

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I suppose you are not Spanish and you don't understand anything.



Bullrings are used for corridas, yeah. I don't like corridas because I don't want animal violence. But bullrings are used for a lot of other shows involving bulls with no violence to the animals. And that are lovely.



The first of all is Cortes. Cortes is just pure skill. You have to avoid the bull in an acrobatic way, jumping and hopping in the last moment. You have no weapon at all in the ring, you can only avoid the bull, you can not hurt it


Here is a nice example


http://youtu.be/Hr9KZ6eRO0E



Other example, well known, are encierros. In a encierro you run ahead of the bulls from one point of the town to the bullring. The animal is not injured, is not killed. They just run, they may hit some slow runners and then return to the "toril", their houses.



And then, there are a lot of flamenco shows in bullrings, most of the them involving beautiful horses and music. Absolutely amazing


Another nice example http://youtu.be/eN3Rt8zqDhQ




Bullrings are not a symbol of death. They are the symbol of passion. And a culture of thousand of years: bullrings can be seen in France, Portugal, Greece and a lot of Americans countries.



And if you hate bullrings because the animal suffers, I hope you will never eat any kind of meat in your whole life. Every chicken, cow, pork or whatever animal you have eaten had a worse, crueler and saddest life than a Spanish bull.


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bullfight are dangerous but not all are as one sided as you have described...i went to one in barcelona years ago and the picadors actually refrained from sticking the bull to make a more entertaining fight. in this fight the bull was not following the whole cape trick and frequently hit the matador. the fight lasted about 40 min and at the end the matador had been severely gored in the abdominable area,,,his white shirt was red with so much blood that the picadors got off of their horses and tried to convince him to stop. he refused and on the last charge he stepped forward and dropped his cape holding the steel sword alone and the bull charged and the matador stuck him and dodged the final charge. it was trulythe second greatest spectacle i have ever seen in my life...bull meat usually goes on to feed the local homeless and orphanages. it is brutal it is bloody but the determination of the matador to risk his life to finish what he started was unbelievable to witness,,,fyi they carted the matador off and he was in the hospital for a month for multiple injuries

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The world is full of liberal loons !!

Yes, there really is no hope for the planet when there are people out there trying to promote the lessening of suffering in the world.

When did it become 'liberal' to be against animal cruelty (not that it should be a dirty word anyway).

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Yes, there really is no hope for the planet when there are people out there trying to promote the lessening of suffering in the world.

When did it become 'liberal' to be against animal cruelty.

I'm not championing animal cruelty but bull fighting as been part of there culture for centuries.

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By lending the added attraction of the Game of Thrones name to the bullring (and perhaps even by paying for its use), ... and the executives of HBO are tacitly in support of bullfighting.

That doesn't make any sense. If you use the location of one thing to represent something completely different, you do not support this thing at all. You might just as well say that the movie Valkyrie would be propagating fascism because it was shot at the Bendlerblock and Wolfsschanze, i.e. on locations of crucial importance for Hitler's regime.

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I'm not championing animal cruelty but bull fighting as been part of there culture for centuries.

It's a shame that any long-held tradition be lost by any society when it has so long been a part of the culture. But if we can't move on from traditions once 'we' (yes, I know that's woolly) think morality has outgrown them then most of us would still be living under that grand old tradition of slavery. Or at least those would that survived being sacrificed to appease the rain gods.

A lot of people in Spain are against bullfighting nowadays as well as admitedly some still for it. I agree whether using the same building or not is not the same issue - but it's a bit annoying that the bullring would be lapping up the free publicity (imo).

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Maybe I would do something later with this very important matter, but there is war in my country, so I'm a bit distracted right now. Does anyone know if PETA can help stop the war or are they interested only in animals? Who knows, there may be some cows or sheep near the battlefield.


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I can see that it is unavoidable the Plaza de Toros of Osuna will financially benefit from filming there , which is something I had not thought of.

Who owns the Plaza? Privately or Osuma?

HBO (rather need Time Warner on this) could ask Osuna to use moneys it gets for any economic benefit except the Plaza.

I am guessing Osuna is in the same financial stress as the rest of Spain.

Seems to me that even filming at a bullring that is no longer used for that is itself a tacit approval , if one wants to go that far, of former and present bull fighting.

For a modern European state this sport inherited from ancient Rome's 'games' still seems strange, one wonders why Cortes , as mentioned above, has not replaced the blood sport?

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I would imagine a large % of people who vilify bull fighting will happily tuck into a Halal slaughtered joint of beef.



Traditions and customs from around the world are sometimes vile to some but they're that countrys to allow or ban, they eat dogs and cats in most parts of Asia yet in the Western world we would find that totally unacceptable, though millions of tourists will still travel to these countries and fund there economy. Sometimes tolerance is the best course of action.


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Kinda defeats the purpose of the scene in Daznak's Pit, doesn't it? The whole point is that Dany abhors the violence and then steps in to save Drogon from being slaughtered.



The production team have probably been given some kind of financial incentive to film there because of the impact it will have on tourism.


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Kinda defeats the purpose of the scene in Daznak's Pit, doesn't it? The whole point is that Dany abhors the violence and then steps in to save Drogon from being slaughtered.

I'd call it brave, if it weren't for the money - if you use the edifice, you pay for it, and if you're paying, you're supporting "the sport". In this light, it's dubious at best.

The production team have probably been given some kind of financial incentive to film there because of the impact it will have on tourism.

Yes, I can the matter being encouraged and mutually beneficial and then some more.

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Sers,



I have heard that these bulls are trained their entire lives to fight in the bullring against matadors. If they can't, they'll spend the rest of their lives pining away for their chance at fighting in the bullring. Do we really want to take that away from them? Do we really want to take their sense of purpose away?


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You can take this many different ways. I'm Spanish. I live in Madrid, 200 meters away from La Plaza de Toros, able to hold 50,000 people.



-It's a fact that the bulls suffer. And it's a fact that, at the end, is really cruel.



-It's also a fact that those bulls have a better life than 99% of the animals that live in our planet. Not like the animals Burguer King, McDonalds, KFC use.



I personally believe that bullfights shouldn't be banned, but just modificated. I would like to see bullfights where the bull is not killed. Just the dancing around the animal, which, even if you don't like it, is beautiful.



And actually, there are probably more people living in Spain who are AGAINST bullfighting than in favor.


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Sers,

I have heard that these bulls are trained their entire lives to fight in the bullring against matadors. If they can't, they'll spend the rest of their lives pining away for their chance at fighting in the bullring. Do we really want to take that away from them? Do we really want to take their sense of purpose away?

Have you never read the story of Ferdinand? He preferred flowers to fighting. Lovely tale.

I don't have strong feelings on this particular issue because I absolutely don't agree that filming there says anything at all for or against bullfighting. If the company pays a fee to use the facility, that money may be used for upkeep for the facility, you know, keep it from collapsing and killing both people and animals maybe. As Javi Marcos has pointed out, the complex is used for more than just bullfighting.

And please, for the love of R'hllor do not dignify PETA by making them part of the discussion. PETA is an American group and has no say in Spain. I'm still angry about their killing dogs and cats they supposedly "rescued" from shelters, and sabotaging dairy farmers' bulk tanks (making the milk undrinkable, and the farmers lose money).

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I would imagine a large % of people who vilify bull fighting will happily tuck into a Halal slaughtered joint of beef.

Traditions and customs from around the world are sometimes vile to some but they're that countrys to allow or ban, they eat dogs and cats in most parts of Asia yet in the Western world we would find that totally unacceptable, though millions of tourists will still travel to these countries and fund there economy. Sometimes tolerance is the best course of action.

Cultural relavtivism is one of the worst things to ever come out of anthropology, period. It is used as a shield for criticism and it is bullshit.

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