How is bullfighting important to the culture of spain?

Question

How is bullfighting important to the culture of spain?

Answer 1

Nowadays, young people dont usually go to see los toros, (maybe if they were cheaper...)

but the meet of toro is so delicious, and in my village it is so well cooked (caldereta), that I dont  want bullfighting to disappear.

Answer 2

bullfighting (corrida) is very, very, very important in spain, like base ball, football and basket ball in USA!

Answer 3

There are a lot of fans.  They understand the sport in the same way that my husband understands what is going on on the baseball field, soccer field or hockey rink.  I don't get any of it.  I love to go, watch the fun, and the people, and I have enjoyed the occasional bullfight (okay, twice) for the same reasons.  because of the pageantry, and watching the WHOLE thing, not just what is going on on the sand.  However, we may see a day when the whole thing dies out.  It seemed like most of the people at the corrida we went to last summer were over 50.  There may not be many fans left, soon.

Answer 4

I like how you've asked your question. This sort of question has been asked a number of times here but yours is worded much better. Thank you for that.

Spain is a country full of different people, languages, and geographies. And like the country, each region has it's own culture.

Bullfighting is not important to all the regions of Spain so we can't generalize. To some regions it's an important component in the culture and to others it's not.

The lower half of Spain is where bullfights are mainly found so to the northerners it's not important although bullfights HAVE taken place throughout Spain at one time or another.

I would never call bullfighting a sport - although it's tempting to do so, possibly equating it to boxing to the death. I'd compare it more to a ballet where the same choreographed steps are followed again and again and then judged (by the knowledgeable public by way of applause) upon the quality and precision of those steps made.

You might best compare this "culture" to tradition and the market surrounding it. Man-versus-beast, fear of death, blood and guts, and violence have always brought huge paying crowds to watch it - and continue to do so around the world in other events like boxing, shark diving, and even circus high-wire walks without a net shows. If gladiator-style man-versus-man fights to the death would be reinstated and televised on Pay-per-view I assure you they'd bring in more money than the best heavyweight boxing match ever.

So HOW is bullfighting important to the culture of Spain? It's important to some regions in Spain in that it maintains hundreds of years of tradition of a spectator event which brings people of like-minds together to judge the event. Flamenco dancing has close ties to bullfighting too.

A quote from WikiPedia:

(quote)

Bullfighting traces its roots to prehistoric bull worship and sacrifice. The killing of the sacred bull (tauromachy) is the essential central iconic act of Mithras, which was commemorated in the mithraeum wherever Roman soldiers were stationed. Many of the oldest bullrings in Spain are located on or adjacent to the sites of temples to Mithras.

Bullfighting is often linked to Rome, where many human-versus-animal events were held as a warm-up for gladiatorial sports. There are also theories that it was introduced into Hispania a millennium earlier by the Emperor Claudius when he instituted a short-lived ban on gladiatorial games, as a substitute for those combats. The later theory was supported by Robert Graves. In its original form, the bull was fought from horseback using a javelin[citation needed]. (Picadors are the remnants of this tradition, but their role in the contest is now a relatively minor one limited to "preparing" the bull for the matador.) Bullfighting spread from Spain to its Central and South American colonies, and in the 19th century to France, where it developed into a distinctive form in its own right.

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Saludos, BarcelonaMan