The Comedy of Bullfighting in the United States of America

Abstract: Between approximately 1880 and the late 1930s, Anglo-American promoters often held bloodless bullfights across the United States, producing a very pale, clumsy, and sometimes even comical imitation of the corrida de toros . This culturally hybrid custom emerged via the process of “glocalization,” by which agents consciously modify a system promoted internationally to accommodate local conditions, in this case, the specific American legal and cultural demand that bullfighters not harm horses or kill bulls. This article examines the sheer ridiculousness of Anglo-run bullfights at three types of events—world’s fairs, Spanish heritage festivals, and boxing tournaments—and the equally absurd and confused ways Anglo-Americans opposed these events. The spectacular incomprehension about bullfighting among Anglos (and sometimes even Latinos) in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries reverberated with further confusion over issues of the desirability of true cultural authenticity, the integrity of Hispanic heritage, the propriety of certain behaviors among women, and the unresolved question of just what constituted animal cruelty. Americans’ occasional interest in bullfighting over a half century, initially the product of a fascination with the culture of the Southwest, ultimately forced Anglos to confront some attitudes and customs of their own culture.