He has bullfighting so deep in his soul that it hurts him to have to admit its truths, but he understands that he must do so so that, thanks to it, he recognizes and corrects his mistakes to guarantee his survival. Javier López-Galiacho (Albacete, 1963), Doctor of Law and professor of Civil Law at the Rey Juan Carlos University, is a pro fan and subscriber of the Madrid and Albacete squares. He talks about the de-staurinization of society, the detachment of bullfighting figures from the fans and the problems surrounding bullfighting in an extensive interview with Cultoro.

Q- First of all, let us ask you how Professor López-Galiacho sees bullfighting today.

R- The current situation of bullfighting reminds me of that boxer about to fall to the canvas, but who holds on tightly to the ropes, waiting for the bell to ring to regain strength. In the last 15 years, bullfighting has received more hooks and hooks from the left and from the right than that famous boxer Folledo, but the Fiesta then still had the waist and legs to avoid the blows and not fall. Now I'm not so sure. COVID, which we have been experiencing since the very beginning of the 2020 season, is a direct blow to the chin of bullfighting and the sector has seriously accused it. He is disoriented, and following boxing jargon, going to the ring chair to catch his breath and see how he can recover for the next round, but he is aware that he is losing the fight by an already very sensitive difference in points. There are many flanks To cover.

First of all, I'm not saying that the public has turned its back on the Fiesta, but Spain has destaurinized itself. In addition, we have a problem of excess production of the fighting bull with the consequent lack of demand that can absorb it. This is for me one of the most serious problems at the moment: to see what we are going to do with so much bull that is left over in the rough field. Bullfighting is not like a theater that you close down and at the age of 25 you can raise the curtain again. Here you close a cattle farm and it is as if you had broken 18th century "Stradivarius" violins at the corners. This very serious crisis has left it palpable that we have a bullfighting business community, with few exceptions, that cannot react and present new formulas to place bullfighting as a spectacle in 21st century Spain. We continue with models typical of Spain in the 19th or early 20th centuries.

The Fiesta has lacked a great politician to support it and a Steve Jobs, a Jeff Bezos, a George Soros or an Amancio Ortega to turn this show around. But we would also need, on the side of the bullfighters, someone to revolutionize the Lidia. Even the model of José Tomás himself may have already become old. We would need the arrival of a messiah who combines the recklessness and truth of José Tomás with the direct emotional connection with the laying that the Spain of the 21st century requires. Bullfighting will only be saved if going to the bulls is an event, a unique experience. And this has been lost. If we add to that the social and legal progress of animalism and petism, the picture is quite bleak.

"For many young people, the bullfighter is a complete stranger"

How to solve the problem of the bullfighter's connection with society?

The bullfighters themselves have had a lot of fault, especially the figures who have hidden in the catacombs of their farms and their parallel businesses, more dependent on the results account than on love for this bullfighting. They have abandoned their Peñas, they no longer step foot in the cities or their streets, or the media. For many young people, the bullfighter is a complete stranger. Apart from that prevailing social and animalistic prejudice among youth, it is as if we were presenting a gladiator or a Viking to a kid today. That is why we have been demanding a strategy for years, among other objectives, of repositioning bullfighting in society. Spain has changed a lot and bullfighting has remained stagnant.

She's back, just when you thought I may leave. People have to pay me to leave, btw😹WOW, that a real wild ride, good… https://t.co/uBFFBaIDpu

— Take Me Home Wed Jun 30 23:18:00 +0000 2021

How did we get to this destaurinization of the country and society?

Several of the causes of this proven sociological fact, I have already raised in the previous question. This was seen coming, but nobody wanted to rethink bullfighting to adapt it to the society of the 21st century. A time that welcomes a digital, liquid society, far from the rural, from the countryside, with practically no contact with animals other than pets. The sector either did not want to or could not see it and has continued to play the music as if it were the Orchestra of the Titanic while the ship was sinking. There is a great disunity.

In this same medium "Cultoro", I offered a series of ideas to rethink bullfighting in the 21st century. One, the main one, was to achieve unity and create a table for the bull, so as to know what we wanted to play, just as was done with Spanish football. By the way, that was quite successful because it gave us a World Cup and two European Cups. But for that it was necessary to have a wise man like Luis Aragonés who knew how to combine. Here in the bull everyone makes war on their own. It reminds me a lot of that world of the circus that I know well where precisely because of that wrong tactic or strategy each one made war from their trenches and that has meant that the circus business, the circus show, has almost disappeared from Spain. Who would have thought. Those impressive ticket offices, filling the tents fair after fair, even giving for early-morning sessions….

I think, on the other hand, that a legion of bullfighting militants is needed. People who are not afraid to confess that I am a bullfighter, that I have a series of good values ​​for society that bullfighting has taught me. You know it, Javier, I never hide that pride. In my classes there are bullfighting examples. When I finish I always salute like a bullfighter. I have written a book "Front, short and right" where I explain how bullfighting is a school of values. This past year I selflessly joined the project of the only print magazine that is "Applause" together with its director Benlloch. To save the Fiesta, we need bullfighters who love it, businessmen and ranchers who love it, and fans who defend it.

I am very envious of the world of hunting. They paid a white paper to a global consulting firm. They have known how to combine wine, tourism, art... with hunting. They have bought six pages in a national newspaper. And the bullfighting, where is it? It is not there, nor is it expected.

What is missing in the Fundación del Toro Lidia taking into account the millionaire economic resources it moves?

You and I have talked more than once about the Foundation and how I see it. But instead of criticizing, what I have done is put myself at the service of this Foundation, especially since its president Victorino is in charge (I always admired his father) and his vice president Fernando Gomá, a friend and colleagues in the legal field. I have joined the Advisory Council of the Foundation itself and also especially the Juan Belmonte Institute to try to anchor bullfighting in the 21st century society. I can give you a little scoop. We have just asked my Rey Juan Carlos University to hold a summer course in July, precisely on how to establish bullfighting in the 21st century. I hope they don't throw this bull back on us because it will be very interesting to discuss the remedies so as not to lose in this 21st century, that secular union that bullfighting has with Spanish society, but also with Mexican, Colombian, Portuguese, French, Peruvian, Venezuelan and Ecuadorian society.

"Bullfighting figures have lost contact with the people"

We asked him this same question a few years ago and we ask him again: Why Roca Rey, being the Cristiano Ronaldo of bullfighting? , can you walk calmly along Madrid's Gran Vía without hardly a few people stopping to say hello?

I believe that the answer has not changed in these years. I have written it down before. The figure of bullfighting is largely to blame for this because he has not been able to place himself in the media spotlight. They have lost contact with the people. You used to see a bullfighter walk down the Gran Vía and you said there goes a bullfighter. By the way. It happened to me in Madrid with Don Manuel Escudero, the one who embroidered bullfighting with the cape. I saw him cross stuffed in his well-planted suit. With his hat and those painterly gaits. And I couldn't help but tell him almost shouting: "There goes a bullfighter." People did not come out of astonishment. Today's great bullfighters look more and more like Armani characters, surrounded by communication directors, putting up barriers so you can get closer to them, with their Twitter and Instagram accounts, etc. And as I have told you before, arriving at the bullrings, in tinted vans and sleeping in luxurious hotels in the surroundings. The walking myth of the bullfighter has been lost. Once I remember seeing a gentleman with a beard pulled down to his eyebrows and a beard walking along Las Canteras beach in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, pushing a baby carriage. I realized it was José Tomás. I told him "teacher" and he ran off with the boy's car. Otherwise, here we have a walking hero like Juan José Padilla, always well dressed, with his patch over his eye. When he walks through the streets, without hiding, people, whether bullfighting or not, stop him and admire him. I witnessed it on Marqués de Urquijo street in Madrid.

What solution can this have?

Well, it's really difficult, because as part of a repositioning of the bullfighters themselves and figures in society, they would first have to provide the solution. Unlike cinema and theater that are defended by actors, bullfighting is defended only by fans.

How to work from the University to defend or promote this show?

The University, by its very definition, must be a center for the search for truth and be the axis of the universality of encounters between different opinions and criteria. I think it is an ideal place for bullfighting, because it should be a center of serene debate, of research to find those anchors of society in the 21st century. And then because we do not forget that without youth there is no party and the University is a youth pool for the future. We created in the Colegio Mayor San Pablo in the 90s, the Mazzantini university bullfighting circle, together with the now excellent jurist Manuel Ollé, precisely to spread the Fiesta, bullfighting, among university students. Already then we had some problems, but today I see heroic those few circles that remain in colleges or universities, who defend the Party. But as I told you in a previous question, we are going to hold that summer course at the Rey Juan Carlos University to discuss how bullfighting can be sustained in this 21st century, which is animalistic and digital. Then, as you know, from our Mazzantini Forum we continue to award the Joaquín Vidal National University Award in bullfighting, whose death is now 20 years old and whom we want to honor at the next San Isidro fair. Here you have another little scoop and we will surely do it within the cultural program of the San Isidro fair, as Miguel Abellán's team already knows.

“We need at least 10 Morantes”

What do you think of what Morante is doing?

We can discuss many things with Morante throughout his career, but what we will never forget is that in the most difficult moment that was the previous season, he threw bullfighting on his shoulders, behind his back, as if it were that remove that has been lavishing and recovering that is the "galleo" or the "Bú" remove. Now, and be careful, bullfighting cannot be sustained and supported only by a single bullfighter. We need at least 10 Morantes and what I am seeing is that new people are coming out, but they are too academic, too formal, with little connection with the lines and with society. We need loads of the Morantes, the Panas and the José Tomás to get people back on the lines. But where are they? This Spain with a full belly no longer gives bullfighters hungry for triumph.