Bullfighting is anachronistic - you enter into a bullring and you're leaving behind the values of the world outside the ring. I suppose that what I would want to acknowledge is that perhaps the tension, the crucial tension, isn't necessarily between the view of bullfighting as a tradition versus as an art form, but between the values inside the ring and the values outside the ring.
Bette FordI'm good at killing, I'm known as a bullfighter who kills well, and that I can kill well, that I can compete technically with my male peers in my technique in killing, gives me satisfaction.
Bette FordI was a bullfighter. I'd like to see the tradition continue. I'm sorry that Catalonia is robbing itself of a tradition that belongs in Catalonia.
Bette FordAnimals are complicated and so is the animal-rights opposition. It's hard to read motives in animals, and hard to read motives in politics.
Bette FordBullfighting has some of the elements of a sport or contest, and in the United States most people think of it as a sport, an unfair sport. If you're in Spain or Mexico it's absolutely not a sport; it's not thought of as a sport and it's not written about as a sport. It has elements of public spectacle, but then so does, for example, the Super Bowl. It has elements of a deeply entrenched, deeply conservative tradition, a tradition that resists change, as you pointed out.
Bette Ford