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| "AT SCHOOL THEY HAVE REPLACED THE SUBJECT OF CIVIC VALUES FOR BULLFIGHTING VALUES" |
“Poor terrified bull. Ban cruel sports,” he wrote on Monday in a retweet of a Daily Mirror video showing Ruiz Pérez attempting to outrun the animal in a makeshift bullring while hundreds of people looked on.
Gervais has since posted a video on his Facebook page in which he says: “If you decide to torture an animal to death, I hope it defends itself.” Describing the people who watch bullfights as morons, he adds: “If you choose to fight a bull for fun, fuck you.”
The comedian, who shot to fame a decade ago in The Office, dismissed arguments defending bullfighting on the grounds that it was tradition, noting that slavery, witchcraft and child sacrifice were also once regularly practiced: “We’ve moved on… it’s about fucking time you stopped.”
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| Men attacking and terrorizing the Toro de la Vega in 2017 |
Gervais tweeted several times about bullfighting over the day: “A matador being killed by a bull is not the tragic bit. Torturing the bull for fun in the first place is the tragic bit.”
The video has since been shared around 10,000 times, with most people supporting Gervais’s position and calling for an end to bullfighting. Gervais is an active defender of animal rights, and recently joined a number of Hollywood stars in condemning the killing of Cecil the Lion in Zimbabwe last month by a US dentist. “Animals don’t have a voice, but I do. And it’s a big one. My voice is for them and I will never be quiet as long as they are suffering,” he has said.
Growing numbers of Spanish celebrities are also calling for an end to bullfighting and the use of animals in festivities. La tortura no es cultura (Torture isn’t culture) is an awareness drive initiated by PACMA, a political party that supports animal rights. Its campaign to ban the Toro de la Vega, an event dating back to medieval times in which a bull is ritually killed by residents of the town of Tordesillas, Valladolid province, each September 15, has been backed by actors and television personalities such as Dani Rovira, Jorge Javier Vázquez, Eva Isanta and David Muro.
“I find it abhorrent that people can enjoy the suffering of animals,” says Dani Rovira, star of last year’s hit Spanish comedy Ocho apellidos vascos. A demonstration is planned in Madrid for September 12 to call for an end to the Toro de la Vega.
Musicians and other artists have thrown their support behind a planned music festival in Tordesillas to coincide with the Toro de la Vega.
El País in English, August 19th, 2015
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| "AND THAT PATRON SAINT, DOES HE KNOW WHAT YOU DO?" |
5 comments:
I am with Ricky Gervais 100 per cent. This archaic practice has got to stop. The bulls go through hell for days with torture and abuse to weaken them before they ever see a bull ring. They are starved, dehydrated, horns shorn off and many other atrocities performed on them. Let's open our eyes to this and get it abolished forever.
Los toros como símbolo de una nación o de una lucha identitaria y el fútbol con sus banderas. Populismos de ayer y de hoy los usan por su poder masivamente visceral. Me gustaría que evolucionaran los primeros, incluidos los correbous, y se racionalizara algo el segundo, pero sobre todo querría menos visceralidad y sobredimensionamiento de la relevancia de ciertas personas y cuestiones, que desde luego necesitan evolucionar, frente a otras muchas que necesitamos imperiosamente que evolucionen.
Las corridas de toros, en el coño de las vacas.
Until recently, bullfighting almost defined Spain in foreign eyes. Some foreigners, like Ernest Hemingway, were entranced by it; others appalled. What is less well known abroad is that Spaniards, too, have long been divided about bullfighting. The anti-taurine tradition is as strong as the taurine one. Emilia Pardo Bazán, the nineteenth-century writer, called it "the national dementia" rather than "the national fiesta." That has become the majority view. In one poll, in 2014, 90% said that they didn't attend corridas. In another, in 2019, 56% said they were against bullfighting and only 25% were in favour. But for its devotees, bullfighting is an art, not a sport, and it is covered in the cultural pages of the newspapers.
Las corridas de toros tienen efectos deseducadores. Debemos preguntarnos si es conveniente para la sociedad seguir manteniendo expresiones culturales que promueven valores confrontados con “la felicidad pública” de la que hablaba Jovellanos.
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