Remember Michelito Lagravere, the child matador who had people up in arms over his sixty kills last summer?
He's back, and he's upped his numbers. Little Michelito killed six young bulls in a ring in Southeastern Mexico last weekend, a feat his parents have sent on for possible inclusion in the Guinness Book of World Records.
That killing bulls would anger animal rights advocates is obvious - some of Lagravere's fights in his father's native France have been canceled because the boy is bloodthirsty. "He fights in corridas [bullfights] aiming to kill," they say.
But the Lagraveres are getting equal attention from outraged parents for putting their pint-sized son in a dangerous ring with angry bulls. Saturday's fight was initially suspended by Mexican officials based on the pressure of child protection officials and the animal advocates. A judge finally gave the go-ahead based on documentation provided by Michelito's father Michel, a former French bullfighting champion. Michel said his son has been in the ring since he was six years old, and he's never had a serious accident. 
I have always found bullfighting to be as abhorrent as dog fighting (I am, after all, a vegetarian), and I'm sickened by the bloodlust exhibited by a child - or an adult for that matter. Still, I can't summon the appropriate outrage over a child being put into a bullfighting ring. Yes, it's dangerous. So is skateboarding. And hockey.
There's also a distinct cultural difference between America and France or Mexico. In the Madeline books, the Spanish ambassador's son, Pepito (the bad hat), showed off his toreador skills to impress the little French girl. My colleague, Cole Gamble, likened child matadors to children armed with a gun and sent into the woods to kill a deer here in America. That too is highly cultural. As appalled as an urban dweller may be at the thought, kids here in the sticks are put through intensive gun safety training courses. They spend countless hours watching an adult prepare for hunting, they do it under the watchful eyes of an adult, and in the end they bring home a deer that the family may well eat off of for a month. Disgusting? Perhaps, but people have to eat.
Which puts this back into the animal rights portion of the argument. Is it necessary for this little boy to be killing his prey? Are these young bulls slaughtered for nothing more than sport? No, and yes.
I don't have a real problem seeing Michelito Lagravere follow in his father's footsteps into a sport that takes cunning and skill - his age be darned. I do, however, have a problem with an eleven-year-old with a bloodlust that is encouraged for nothing more than glory.
Images: Sky News, AP
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