Three stupidities

It may be churlish to criticise mundotoro.tv after recently thoroughly enjoying watching Sevilla’s victorinada and, indeed, Morante de la Puebla’s historic tail-cutting performance there live through the medium, but it’s an organisation that really needs to get its communications sorted.

First of all, we had the failed launch of March 15, with that day and several days thereafter no communications emerging whatsoever from the company, leaving many would-be subscribers fearing the worst. A number of journalists had already deemed the outfit to be “amateurish” and this silence ran true to that opinion, but was also an insult to all those hoping the new source of corrida transmissions would get off the ground and meet their needs.

Eventually, the launch did happen on March 28, although the subsequent news that mundotoro.tv was to use the existing PlazaTorosTV streaming platform cast further doubts as to the robustness of the new venture, which had promised a number of technological innovations (the old PlazaToros TV site has transferred to a new mundotoro web address, and with minimal changes to its previous format even though these don’t particularly suit the new venture). Individuals associated with the company also made several comments about the possibility of mundotoro.tv being available on non-Smart televisions, which has so far not come to pass.

Then, on Easter Sunday, with an announced 18,000 subscribers expecting to watch mundotoro.tv’s official opening corrida, problems occurred, leaving a number of viewers unable to access the bullfight until its second half. Mundotoro claimed only 300 subscribers were affected, but, judging by the number of media comments about failed access, the true figure was likely to have been higher. It also, unfortunately, included a number of media commentators. The event also highlighted the existence of a number of pirate sites offering the paychannel for free. All in all, not the start the new channel would have been hoping for.

Things appear to have gradually improved since then, although there is still an undercurrent of dissatisfied mutterings in the media. But perhaps the worst communication of all came on April 17, when it was announced that mundotoro.tv had reached agreement with José María Garzón to show Málaga’s August feria. A representative of the streaming channel had made a comment earlier in the year that Garzón was “the best empresa of all” - a strange thing to say when the company was in the middle of negotiating streaming rights with various empresas to cover the whole temporada. Anyway, come April 18, Garzón stated he’d been in no talks with mundotoro.tv since February and no contract to transmit Málaga’s feria had been agreed.

The new channel has promised its subscribers over 100 live corridas over the course of a year, although to date the only certain ferias appear to be Sevilla’s current one and San Miguel, Madrid’s San Isidro and Feria de Otoño and Valencia’s Feria de San Jaime. As far as the corrida transmissions themselves are concerned, they appear to be of a similar quality and content (indeed, too similar content, although this viewer has been enjoying the refreshingly frank opinions of Domingo Delgado de Cámara, one of the regular presenters) to its predecessor, Movistar’s Canal Toros. But, if it is to increase the confidence of its subscribers and potential subscribers, mundotoro.tv needs to get its communications sorted out so that they can be relied upon. To leave things as they are would be stupidity.

(Image from mundotoro.com)

When I entered the bullring in Santander in 2000 to take my seat for ‘El Bombero Torero’, I did so with some trepidation. Would I be viewing a spectacle in which los enanos were exploited for their limited height and made to look a laughing stock? On the other hand, this kind of event had long been part of taurine culture and it seemed a shame to let the opportunity go by.

In fact, there was quite a lot of comedy without animals in the ring, but three becerras did make an appearance - one for full-size members of the production to fool around with, one (in the middle section) for a youngster to torear seriously (it turned out to be my first viewing of Morenito de Aranda), and, at the end, one for the restricted-height bomberos toreros themselves. I came away impressed with the latter, for their bravery up against an animal of their own height or more and their ability to do tricks and comedy whilst sharing the ring with a becerra. At no point did I feel the team were being exploited because of their dwarfism or made to be figures of fun because of their limited height.

So it was with some sorrow that I read earlier this month that Spain’s Senate had voted to prohibit the bomberos toreros. The idea originated in the Left-wing grouping Unidas Podemos in 2021 on the grounds that they wanted to rid Spain of “practices that legitimise the denigration and public mockery of a disability, such as, in the case of ‘El Bombero Torero’, abnormal bone growth” - a complete misunderstanding of the spectacle - and arguing that the participants should be “professionally recycled”, i.e. moved into other employment.

The comic cuadrilla “Diversiones en el Ruedo y sus enanitos toreros” stated, as other such cuadrillas have said before them, that they enjoyed their performances and regarded themselves as artists and toreros and do not feel denigrated in any way. They also argued that the right to work is a fundamental human right, as is the freedom to choose what work to be involved in. The politicians, they say, should leave them alone.

Alas, the politicians of the Senate felt otherwise. The prohibition proposal, now in the name of Esquerra Republicana, was backed by 153-3, with 100 abstentions. Later in April, the text involved received the final approval of Spain’s Congress of Deputies, the last step to becoming law. Another stupidity.

The third stupidity lends itself to more humourous coverage, but it is still a stupidity. Some insensitive person has come up with the idea that, in future, petitioning for awards should be carried out by spectators using their smart phones to scan a QR code and access a scoresheet. Voting in this way is open for one or two minutes after a bull has died and is limited to one vote per entrada. All the president then has to do is look at the result and display his pañuelo/s. (Vueltas en arrastre for bulls are not currently part of the system.)

It is hard to believe that whoever dreamt up this system is an aficionado. Just think what we will miss if it becomes the norm. No more handkerchiefs waving in the plaza, just a mass of people silently looking at their phones. No more discussions into the night as to whether the president’s decision to award or withhold the first ear for a particular matador was correct or not. And possibly no subjectivity on the president’s part in relation to the second ear and the tail, as it will take a brave president to “protect a plaza’s status” and stand up to large numbers showing on his smart phone demanding such awards be given, especially if the voting results are made available on the spot to all participants - a feature that will probably become available in time. Indeed, without the voting result being made instantly public, broncas aimed at presidents would also cease as no one would know how everyone had voted and therefore whether a president had overturned the crowd’s will or not.

This blog site has generally championed modernisation of the corrida, but this is a step too far. Indeed, this writer would like to see petitioning with handkerchiefs upheld to the extent that the increasingly common ‘petitioning’ with cushions, piece of paper, etc. is discounted in favour of pañuelos only. Some things are just too sacred…

(For those wishing to know more, the system was trialled at Tomelloso on April 16, when the president was asked to take into account those spectators waving handkerchiefs as well as the smart phone scoring. The result of the latter was confined to the president and only made available to the public the day after the event. In a corrida mixta, the rejoneadora Lea Vicens was awarded three ears, and matador Ángel Téllez and novillero Sergio Felipe one ear off each of their bulls. No comments were made on the voting system afterwards, although Tomelloso Hoy described the award of Felipe’s first ear as “excessive”.)