The Social Rights Ministry in Spain is demanding an outright ban on bullfighting shows that feature little people bullfighters, calling it “degrading.”
As per the Daily Star, the controversial shows, usually held in small Spanish towns and villages, have little people fight a young cow.
Spain’s Social Rights Ministry argued the dignity of little people is being diminished and this argument has been supported by disability advocacy groups around the world, EL PAÍS reported.
The ministry had called for the immediate cancelation of a recent show featuring little people bullfighters in the town of Zahínos in Badajoz, Extremadura. The show’s organizer, comedy troupe Diversiones en el Ruedo (Amusement in the Ring), have been staging events since 2015.
Their company employs 14 bullfighters, with eight of them being little people. The Zahínos show ran as planned despite the ministry’s outcries.
Jesús Martín Blanco, the head of the department that oversees the rights of people with disabilities at the Ministry of Social Rights, who is also a little person, is most critical of performances meant for audiences filled with children.
He said, “If the children are going to laugh at a person in a bullring, they will surely laugh at me when they come out.”
Carmen Alonso, from the Alpe Achondroplasia Foundation and whose son is a little person, agreed with concerns raised about the negative effect these shows might have on children.
“I have been trying to get these types of shows banned since my son was born, and he is now 29,” she said.
“People need to understand that people with disabilities are going to be mocked, in many cases over 60% or 70% of the time. Walking down the street we have been pointed at many times, and people say things like ‘there goes the bullfighter fireman’,” Alonso explained.
Felipe Ordiz, also a member of the Alpe Achondroplasia Foundation, said the shows are “based on humiliation” and create an “unhealthy society.”
He added, “We have to ask ourselves what would happen if a similar show was made with people with Down syndrome, or sensory impairment, or any other type of disability. Would it be allowed?”
Not everyone agrees with banning these events.
Daniel Calderón, the manager of Diversiones en el Ruedo, who is also a bullfighter, said, “Everyone should be able to work at what they want.
“We are all professionals; we are accredited with the Culture Ministry; we contribute to the Social Security system, and we do not want to live on subsidies, we want to fight.
“It’s our trade. I invite everyone to come and see if they are really laughing at them or laughing with them.
“It’s a show like any other. Contrary to what’s being said, they are idols for the children. The kids go down to the bullring; they do some bullfighting; they have a good time with them, and being of the same stature, they feel like the real thing.”
But Martín Blanco argued that these shows depict little people “as buffoons,” adding, “That’s something that should be eradicated by law. It is making fun of someone for having different abilities.
“That is why the ministry is going to direct all its efforts into abolishing these practices and banning these types of shows, which are still allowed by law.”
Recent data proves that these types of shows are not as popular as they once were. In 2019, 349 bullfights were held in Spain, in which only 11 were run by comedy troupes, according to the Culture Ministry’s Statistics of Bullfighting Affairs.
