Should Conservatives Conserve Bullfighting?

Albert Serra lets the visuals tell the story in his documentary about bullfighting, Afternoons of Solitude, in which we witness Andrés Roca Rey, Peruvian torero in Spain, before, during, and after his performances in the bullring. Screened at the San Sebastián Film Festival at the end of 2024 and given a staggered global release throughout 2025, it doesn’t pull from the usual bag of documentary tricks. There is no voiceover narration, there are no interviews, and the moments of contest in the plazas de toros are captured tightly from the middle to close distance with a distinct lack of crowd shots. Because the film lacks the didacticism typical of its genre, it can provide an opportunity for conservatives to analyse how they think about questions of what to conserve, modify, or discard from tradition.

Serra’s documentary does not give any overview of the long and complicated history of bullfighting, but it is worth noting where this “art,” as Hemingway described it, finds itself in the present day. At various times bullfighting has been a pagan contest depicted in The Epic of Gilgamesh, a condemned practice banned under Pope Pius V, a nationalistic tradition renewed in popularity under Francoist Spain, a bygone artefact crippled by animal welfare groups, and now a point of contention in the Left vs. Right culture wars.

Some claim to see a recent resurgence in its popularity while others suggest attendance at events is at an all-time low. Earlier this year, violent bullfighting was banned in Mexico City. Last month, famed matador Morante de la Puebla retired in Madrid, a decision El Mundo describes as leaving the sport “orphaned”. This is welcome news for many, who see bullfighting as a bloodsport and an obvious ethical problem. Those who advance this position can appeal, not unpersuasively, to a variety of arguments pertaining to animal welfare, rights, or interests. In short, the objection is that there is something cruel and retrograde about the practice that an appeal to tradition simply does not excuse.

I will not relitigate these arguments, as they have been widely discussed and most ordinary people have an instinctual understanding of them. Indeed, most of the Spanish-speaking world appears to have been polled on the question, and the survey results don’t look good for bullfighting. Rather, I wonder if there is some rationale we can locate within Serra’s documentary that could potentially persuade people to keep bullfighting as a tradition and accept any potential rise in its popularity. What case can bullfighting, which finds itself so on the moral backfoot these days, make for itself?

Some clues to support its existence might be found in the abundance of religious symbolism evident in Andrés Roca Rey’s rituals both in and out of the bullring. When Rey puts on his crucifix it gets stuck, momentarily, around his head like a crown of thorns. A picture frame containing two images of Mother Mary, one crying and the other beaming, watches over him as he prepares. At times, his wounded physique is poised in his hotel room like Saint Sebastian. After being charged and hit by a bull, his initial exclamation is that he must have been protected by an angel. This syncretism of pagan and Christian bloodshed is bound to defy any attempts at sober moral calculus.

Serra’s choice to begin the documentary with a scene of two fighting bulls (toro de lidia) standing in the still of the night, everything silent except their deep breathing, is suggestive of them lurking somewhere in the darkness of our unconscious. A curious counterpoint to these mute animals is the complex ceremony we then start to see being built around them. From the devotional way in which the intricately patterned clothing is adorned, to the finer points of the spectacle’s dramatic etiquette, it’s clear that the fuss being made is enough to constitute something metaphysical. One suspects, with some dismay, that the bulls would tell these people to stop making such a fuss if they had the ability to.

Although it is a spectacle requiring the very end of their lives, it is not really about the bulls. During a pivotal moment in a contest, we hear someone from the crowd shouting impassionedly that Andrés Roca Rey is on the “front-lines of the soul.” Members of his team are quick to remind him that he has “big balls” and is putting his life at risk—he is simultaneously Christian martyr and pagan warrior. For outsiders to the tradition, Serra’s documentary provides some compelling snapshots of these rituals surviving from the old world and remaining stubbornly in the new.

Serra also manages to capture insults and abuse directed towards the bulls from Rey and his team, during moments of heightened passion. They are not especially valued opponents as we might expect, for example, in the gentlemanly glory of boxing, but “sons of b****es,” “nasty”, “vicious bastards”, and so on. Have we turned the bulls into symbolic demons, possessed with our anxieties, through which our contests with them are a form of exorcism? These are just some of my gringo speculations; Serra’s hands-off approach will conjure other insights for other people.

But the skill and tension of the actual bullfighting is undeniable. The rules are never explained but unfold naturally until an unfamiliar viewer grows to feel their dynamics by the end of the documentary. There are moments where Rey has the bull entranced, displaying a series of impossibly nimble moves, that are not unlike watching a peacock or ballerina. There are also moments of profound stillness when both man and bull are frozen dangerously close to one another, where anything can happen, feeling like the tension of the entire world in one spot.

Appeals to skill and spiritualism will not likely win over those committed to the arguments for animal ethics, but such a case will only need to convince others of its merits. If conservatives and populists can continue to articulate something about bullfighting as an art and tradition tied to a dance with death and oblivion, or as a vigorous and stupefying display of individual and national will (or something capital ‘R’ Romantic like that), it could maybe expect a spike in interest during our increasingly atomised times. With the threat of a new era of data farms, depressive AI interfacing, and people feeling more and more like the Nietzschean ‘Last Man,’ I wouldn’t rule out a craving for the taste of blood.

I said earlier that bullfighting now finds itself on the moral backfoot, but there is no guarantee this will remain the case. It must also be stressed that right-leaning individuals should not feel under any obligation to support the practice either. In the final analysis, people can and will be selective about the way they use certain animals and for what ends. Spanish conservatives, for example, will have to decide how well they can make the spiritual case for bullfighting and weigh this up against the practicality of the numbers of dissenters who have lost their taste for blood. The likes of the VOX Party appear to have adopted a stance, wisely or unwisely, that such a voter base is not worth courting.