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

[boojam]

I am just curious Ran has there been any communication between you and anybody at GOT show production about this matter?

[LadyCC]

I don't post often, but I am a huge forum stalker, but as I've seen the terms mentioned a few times and as an Animal Scientist I feel the need to mention that the terms "Animal Rights" and "Animal Welfare" are two very different things.
Animal Rights being the term used for your more extreme, often emotionally based organisations and Animal Welfare being an actual science, with views based of research.

Animal Rights organisations would like to see no one use bulls for any reason, what so ever.
Animal Welfare scientists such as myself would like to not see cruelty to animals, but know and respect the need for use of animals by humans (e.g. agriculture, companionship) and also take into concern how the current owner (in this case of the bulls) would survive without the profit from the animals. We like to help people too and educate them on better practices rather than scream "Nooo not the animals!!!!".

I haven't had anything to do with bullfighting, but have been involved with the issues surrounding cockfighting in certain countries and how we can help the animals yet not put their human owners into extreme poverty. It's all much more difficult than it sounds.

Anyway, continue away, just remember a good debate uses correct terms :)

[FreeParking]

I was curious, is there anyone here who won't be watching the show because of this issue?

[Ser Oromus Locke]

Who's this "WE" the original post is talking about? To me, it sounds like a done deal example of a cultural imperialist animal right movement trying to run all over a country's different culture. I don't know why otherwise you wouldn't post in the singular form..

Disclaimer. This is an opinion. I love animals. I'm just a practical man. I also agree with LadyCC, animal welfare is important to me just as anyone else.

But yes, some bullrings in Spain have stopped their practices, but this could be due to several different reasons, or hey, maybe they just chose to buckle to cultural imperialism or simply different values. If this is what the Osuna public wants and apparently they do, otherwise the bullring wouldn't have the funds to stay open, then there's nothing wrong for GoT going there to shoot their scenes.

I don't see eye to eye with the big issue. Cavemen murdered animals to stay alive, don't go thinking that it was done nicely. Humans need animals, like LadyCC said. Personally, I don't feel as if animals deserve the exactly same rights as humans, as long as those rights are equal to the purpose. Pets? Sure, they deserve some rights to secure their well being, their endgoal is to stay alive and keep the person their with company. Cattle being raised to be slaughtered eventually? I honestly don't think they should have the same rights as pets. Don't stick them in pens the size of a pencil-sharpener, give them some form of freedom of movement during their living years, but do realize that these animals are being kept to make a profit and that's a thing. The bulls are being kept to be part of a cultural piece of entertainment. Again, with a set end goal for these animals. Keep them happy during their lifetime, but I honestly have nothing against them being slaughtered at the end - however the culture seems fit. And if a different culture doesn't deem that as fit, then they still have no right to be a noisy picker and should just accept that certain cultures are different..

GoT-production apparently accepts that some cultures are different. If you can't handle that, don't endorse the show. Don't go tell the show that they shouldn't film somewhere. Hence, I'm not telling people to not be empathetic to animals, but in this case, it's all about whether the GoT-production accepts that Spain has a different culture.

I'm Dutch, currently, abortion isn't an issue in the Netherlands. Life/Choice is definitely still a thing in the States and Choice is only offered in Spain if you're raped. So, when a similar location is offered in either the Netherlands or Spain, will Pro-Life organizations rally and scream that Choice is an option in the Netherlands and that the filming production shouldn't therefore shoot in the Netherlands? It's the exact same thing.

It all depends on how much a filming production accepts and respects a different culture. In my belief, animal rights movements have no respect for other cultures and in their very nature try to impose their values on other cultures with no respect to the culture in question.

[Ingelheim]

GoT-production apparently accepts that some cultures are different. If you can't handle that, don't endorse the show. Don't go tell the show that they shouldn't film somewhere. Hence, I'm not telling people to not be empathetic to animals, but in this case, it's all about whether the GoT-production accepts that Spain has a different culture.

I'm Dutch, currently, abortion isn't an issue in the Netherlands. Life/Choice is definitely still a thing in the States and Choice is only offered in Spain if you're raped. So, when a similar location is offered in either the Netherlands or Spain, will Pro-Life organizations rally and scream that Choice is an option in the Netherlands and that the filming production shouldn't therefore shoot in the Netherlands? It's the exact same thing.

It all depends on how much a filming production accepts and respects a different culture. In my belief, animal rights movements have no respect for other cultures and in their very nature try to impose their values on other cultures with no respect to the culture in question.

Not anymore. Yesterday, our president said the abortion law the wanted to create was no longer a thing. The Secretary of Justice quit.

Now the abortion law is nearly the same as any other in Europe.

I'm so happy about that, to be honest.

[Ran]

Cultural relativism: still pants when you're talking about a modern European democracy. Spain has laws against animal cruelty, just as other decent Western countries do. They just make an exception for bullfighting, which is driven by an understandable but backwards appeal to "tradition".

(As to "we", that would be Linda and I, who run Westeros.org.)

[Mrs_Darcy]

If the message of the story is being contradicted by the reality of production, then there is a clear failure on behalf of the showrunners. They care only about profit, not about the characters or the story. This scene is supposed to be about Daenerys, and yet they're doing something which would be in complete violation of her values. It's going to look ridiculous if Dany gets offended by blood sport in a place that actually contains blood sport.

The showrunners chose it because they were offered a financial incentive to film there, which is precisely because of the positive impact the show will have on tourism. Ran has already pointed out that there are other non-active bullrings which are maintained and could have been used.

You're right about that but judging the way D&D have rewritten some characters (Cersei, Tyrion!!!, etc) I do not think, that this gives them sleepless nights.

[mediterraneo]

Well, I'm a foreigner in Spain, and I frankly felt that theme is out of the scope of the forum.

But as a second thought it would be difficult to accept a censorship of the theme.

I was to some arena sometimes, and I admit I'm fascinated by the strenght of the bull. Seeing it from the barrier, from meters away as I had the chance of doing a day in which it rained and people were leaving spots, and left me "steal" some rows (prices go up as you go down the ring and if the seat has shadow over it) it's very powerful.
Bullfighting is just butchery most of the times, but it does require a lot of phisical courage to put yourself in front of a bull like that.
They are not the calm bulls you have in your stable, either, they are purpose selected to be muscular, lean, agile and aggressive.

Even to be insulted by the attenders because you were not standing near enough to the bull to be in real danger (it happens to bad toreros, and to good ones too) it is needed to take the choice and the action of standing there. Even if a foot moves when it should have stood firm in a risky place, you tried to put yourself in front of an enraged beast, your groin in a place where horns a yard long could easily hit your femural arteria or testicles.
And I admit fascination for that strenght and that courage, so I'm a biased source on this.

But the OP poses a problem of the use of the phisical place for the arena. The name of the place, in Spanish and the latin languages I know, is Arena, not "bullfighting ring". It has the same name as the common name of the roman amphiteatrus, the "double theater covered with "arena", sand, that it phisically resembles.
To use an existing structure for filming you could use a "bullfighting ring" as the OP calls it or, say, Merida's actual arena. A place where people were killed not as an accident. Toreros die in the arena, and mith wants that expecially the good ones do that. But in gladiatorial roman alternatives, people were supposed to die. Which place is worst to use?

On that. Should we not accept as a valid location for filming (for filming anything, not just GoT) any place where something cruel happens or happened?
To say one thing, in Catalonia the local government stopped the bullfighting, to stop the cruelty to the animals and to mark themselves as nonspanish. Anybody who has been to Catalunia has seen shirts in english that say that "it is not Spain" and there is an indipendence referendum airing soon.
But Catalunia didn't stop the other collective forms of violence on animals on public meetings, most often connected with some religious festival.
Should we restrain from shooting in Spain because in some Spanish (or Spainsh and Catalan, if you believe it is to distinguish) church a sheep is thrown from the top of the bell's tower in the day of some saint? Well, I believe that animal defenders "should not be worried" about that because since some years they kill the sheep before throwing it. In Catalunia as well as in Castilla and Andalucia there are barbaric scenes of bulls or cows with torches bound to their horns freed between the people. It is not "bullfighting" so it is permitted everywhere. Near Madrid, in Tordesillas there is the "Toro de la Vega" tradition. In which they free a bull in the streets of the town the one in which the Tordesillas' Treaty was signed, a beautiful medieval town. Then the riches on horses and the people on foot challenge themselves in which side and which one will be the first in hit the bull with spears. Year 2014.

Should we restrain ourselves from using for the series or for any work of fiction this place?
Should we not go to visit the beautiful town of Tordesillas for the tradition (and the businnes around it?)

Should we refuse to use for recording the series any country in which animals are grown, constrained and killed in cubicules where they cannot almost move themselves?
That would excludes EVERY country in the world from being a "legal" place to work.

I say that I'm ok with GoT being represented in Osuna's arena, but that's just me.

EDIT: A line went missing while writing, so I ended up editing some passage for clarity

[Beric175]

@Ran:

Cultural relativism: the only bulwark against cultural imperialism and the homogenization of local cultures and identities across the globe. I'm sure I could find a lot of things wrong with the vapid, materialistic, individualistic consumer culture in the US that is being exported to all other countres around the world and that is so gun-friendly that even when 26 children are killed noone does anything to change it. I could find things wrong with a lot of different traditions in a lot of different countries but I'm not going to push my values on other people from outside if they themselves are not ready to push for change in their traditions. Change has to come organically from within and as long as that's not happening we as outsiders to that culture can only observe and try to understand the reasoning behind keeping those traditions.

[Ravi Seaworth]

I admit that I haven't read the whole thread, so I might repeat others. I come from a country where this tradition is still accepted by some. I say some because more and more have been calling this to question, and I am against it. However, it's difficult to change the mentalities of those that were raised to accept it as normal. And as others said you cannot just force others to accept your culture as theirs.

That being said, I really cannot see how this has anything to do with the filming. Like that Mysa scene, I think this is taking the politically correctness too far, which I think happens too often in this forum. Exaggerating a bit, it's like not wanting to film in the Colosseum because that promotes gladiator fighting. If GoT were an historical series depicting bull fighting in that arena, then it wouldn't be a problem, since history is history whether you like it or not. And given that this show already depicts so much violence, I cannot really understand this kind of thought. One thing is to show violence and another is to support it. If you want people to not support animal abuse, then you should educate them to understand why it's bad, not hide from them the reality.

A completely different issue is if they are giving money to the activity, which I hope they are not. If it's just for touristic purposes, then I am ok with it.

[Ran]

There is no gladitorial fighting today. It doesn't exist. The Colosseum is a historic site for events that no longer take place in history. If gladitorial combats were happening to this day in Rome, yes, I think it'd be pretty disgusting that a film or show filmed there.

Osuna's bullring is used now, today, for the torture and killing of bulls as entertainment.

That's where other analogies do not hold. If Game of Thrones filmed at a sacrifical event and showed the slaughter of a sheep, I would be against it there, as well, because the show was giving added impetuous for that event to be a tourist attraction. If they filmed in that town but didn't feature any such deplorable events, on the other hand, I don't think I'd mind.

Making the bullring, specifically, a filming location, and therefore making it specifically a tourist attraction for Game of Thrones fans -- a feature of the negotiations over the use of the bullring, since HBO uses the fact that its show draws visitors to the locations they film at -- is problematic.

Imagine if they got a sweet deal to film something useful for the show at Guantanamo Bay. Maybe they get some of the prisoners there as free extras to represent captured rebel slaves or something. I'd find that horrifying. I'm pretty sure many others would as well.

No one's talking about "hiding from the reality". But making the place a tourist attraction is not doing anything to educate. The best way to educate would be for the production to decide that they aren't going to film there because of those concerns.

[Le Cygne]

There is no rationale for cruelty, one can label it "tradition" but cruelty is cruelty. Whether against women, or a minority, or animals, cruelty is worth calling out. That's how change comes about. It's also disingenuous to assume a culture speaks with one voice, or that all voices are equally heard. Sometimes speaking out brings more cruelty. And of course, animals can't speak for themselves.

[Ravi Seaworth]

Ran, I understand that difference. What I am saying is that I do not find any problem depicting a historical event in a place where that event took place, in the sense that it does not in my view promote the violent acts there. And since Game of Thrones is a fictional story, I see even less problems with it, but I understand your point. I might not be seeing the whole picture, maybe because I am used to tolerating bull fighting. For instance, I see why filming a holocaust movie in Auschwitz could be a problem, although I think many Jews would actually prefer that in order to show what really happened. But to me the only real issue could be the show financing bullfighting activities.

The discussion regarding bull fighting is relevant, and I agree with you Le Cygne, but I think it's orthogonal to issue of whether the show should film there. The issue is more whether by doing it they are promoting bull fighting in any significant way. I can tell you that recently in my country there was a protest close to one of those places, and one of the main lancers tried to overrun them while riding his horse. It is an issue that is being discussed, and I believe that bullfighting will gradually disappear. Most people that promote it still live with the 60's mentalities, when the Iberian countries were fascist dictatorships. My point is that you cannot come from a foreign country and impose on them a different mindset, since it doesn't usually work. On the contrary, it creates more anti-bodies. That change must come from within.

[Le Cygne]

But you can help those who can't help themselves. That doesn't have to come from within.

[Ravi Seaworth]

But you can help those who can't help themselves. That doesn't have to come from within.

Sure, but not in any way. If you simply accuse a person of being unethical, then she might form a shield around her and ignore you, becoming even harder to convince her. And if she is inserted into a community that shares her views and has not much contact with other societies, then it is even harder. It is the old saying: "you do not catch flies with vinegar". You may not be that type of person, but I know a lot of people from "more advanced" societies that behave in an arrogant manner, while only being interested in promoting their self sense of moral superiority.

[Le Cygne]

Arrogance is arrogance. Help is help. I'm talking about help. There are many such examples throughout history, where change is brought about because people didn't stand by when cruelty was done to others.

[Ravi Seaworth]

Measures such as boycotting these activities are valid. So, if not filming in that arena helps in this sense, then I agree with you, although I was not initially thinking in these terms, nor am I convinced of what the OP said.

If the goal is really to change mentalities, then I think education is the most efficient way, and there of course anyone can help. But this may require some patience.

[Le Cygne]

Raising awareness is quite effective and I believe that's what was suggested as well.

"Talk about the issue among yourselves, and let people know about it by posting, mailing, sharing, tweeting—whatever you can do."

Change doesn't come overnight, but it has to begin somewhere. I don't think anyone who objects to cruelty considers it a waste of time to raise awareness, even if the goal is not achieved instantly.

[PatrickStormborn]

@Ran:

Cultural relativism: the only bulwark against cultural imperialism and the homogenization of local cultures and identities across the globe. I'm sure I could find a lot of things wrong with the vapid, materialistic, individualistic consumer culture in the US that is being exported to all other countres around the world and that is so gun-friendly that even when 26 children are killed noone does anything to change it. I could find things wrong with a lot of different traditions in a lot of different countries but I'm not going to push my values on other people from outside if they themselves are not ready to push for change in their traditions. Change has to come organically from within and as long as that's not happening we as outsiders to that culture can only observe and try to understand the reasoning behind keeping those traditions.

Well I guess Dany shouldn't even be in Meereen in the first place then!

[Mr Fixit]

Well I guess Dany shouldn't even be in Meereen in the first place then!

You can say that again! ;)