Alright, for this post, I really want to tell you about this awesome Netflix show called The Big Flower Fight.

But first, I also need to tell you about how much I love the fairytale “Rapunzel”.  It’s possible that this will turn mostly into a post about fairytales (in their moving-picture incarnations), but I’m hopeful I’ll be able to stay on track enough to also tell you about The Big Flower Fight.  Stay tuned.

So, “Rapunzel.”  Classic, famous fairytale.  It’s possible that my love for this fairytale stems from the fact that the main character has very long hair, and that I have very long hair (though not that long, of course; it only goes to my knees).  But I would like to argue that another, very important reason I love this fairytale is because of Faerie Tale Theatre.

For those not acquainted, Faerie Tale Theatre is a TV show from the 80’s where the actress Shelly Duvall presented a different fairytale each episode as a lovely teleplay.  Though Shelly Duvall did play the lead role in a couple of the early episodes (including “Rapunzel”), mostly it was a different mix of actors and directors every time (Tim Burton directed the Aladdin episode, for example, and it definitely shows his style).  Lots of famous actors of the time cycled through, including Carrie Fisher as Thumbelina, Billy Crystal as the smart little piggy, Susan Sarandon as Beauty in “Beauty and the Beast”, and Jeff Bridges as the Prince in “Rapunzel”.  Shelly Duvall and Jeff Bridges also played Rapunzel’s parents, so that gives you an idea of the scale of the productions, but the costuming and set design were always top notch, creating results that were whimsical and lovely.

As a kid, of course, my main-stream source of fairytale understanding came from Disney, which at the time consisted of Snow White, Cinderella, and Sleeping Beauty, and then, eventually: The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, and Aladdin.  Six examples definitely sets a trend, and I figured that my favorite two fairytales^ would never make it to the Disney big screen because their main-characters were not princesses—turns out, of course, that Disney will make their main-characters be princesses, whether that fits the original fairytale or not!  The only really necessary things to preserve in a fairytale-to-Disney transfer seem to be a) key physical attributes (in Sleeping Beauty this was super easy), and b) the origin point of a messed-up home-life.

(^ So, “Rapunzel” and “The Snow Queen” are actually neck-and-neck in terms of my very favorite fairytales.  Be grateful this post focuses on “Rapunzel” or you would get to hear all of the thoughts and complaints I have about Frozen and Frozen II.  As it is, I’ll keep it to this: Is the messed-up-home-life component so important they had to add it to “The Snow Queen”/Frozen?  !!??..okay, I’m making myself stop now.  I actually quite like Tangled.)

Anyway, “Rapunzel” is a proper fairytale, which means that its original form is darker and twistier than what you get from Disney.  It’s got classic dark-fairytale elements, like a child-stealing witch, and a weird quest (how do you get the maiden out of the tower using only her hair?).  Also, the main-character is named after a vegetable, because that’s just how these things go.  And the Faerie Tale Theatre version kept all of that, but the result still managed to be romantic and dreamy, partly because Shelly Duvall herself is really good at playing ethereal when that’s what’s called for, and Jeff Bridges can match that, absolutely.

So, a romantic and dreamy production with clearly dark stuff mixed in (Rupunzel’s witch and tower also come with nasty thorns, but unlike “Sleeping Beauty”’s Prince, this Prince does not defeat them, but instead ends up blinded by them and destitute).  But, sweet and dreamy + dark is a very powerful and compelling combination.  We all know this, and it’s why the original fairytales have as much staying power as they do.  It’s also very much imprinted on my brain as an aesthetic and a way to construct and rationalize stories that I really like and am drawn to, and the Faerie Tale Theatre production of “Rapunzel” is almost certainly an early, key part of that.

Okay.  Onward!  The Big Flower Fight.

(Actually, one more aside: I always longed to visit the Summer Lady’s garden from the Faerie Tale Theatre version of “The Snow Queen” (my other favorite!), so that is definitely one way that beautiful gardens and fairytales have always been intertwined for me and one more way I was definitely set up to absolutely adore The Big Flower Fight. …dun. dun. dun…)

As I am sure you would guess the moment you saw the opening credits, The Big Flower Fight is a competition show in the same vein as The Great British Bake Off, but of course instead of baking, the contestants are doing flower arrangements—giant, sculptural- to art-installation-level flower arrangements!  (Do I need to say any more?  Don’t you just want to dive over to watch it right now!?)

Rather than working singly, the contestants are working in teams of two, because the scale of the challenges just is not do-able by one person by themselves.  Also, the scale of the challenges lends itself to something collaborative, so that’s a nice extra element brought into this show.  There aren’t as many teams as in Bake Off, but there are just as many people, and nice-people interactions.  Sadly (horribly sadly!) we have only one season of this show (which came out in May of 2020), consisting of just eight episodes.  But they are glorious episodes, and each one is of high quality in terms of the creations the contestants produce (one of my very favorite entries appears in episode 1—Andrew and Ryan’s gorgeous bee).

Like with Bake Off, some of the challenges are somewhat similar, but each one has a distinct theme and set of goals.  One challenge calls for designing couture all from flowers.  Another requires creating sea creatures using coastal plants and flowers.  Most of the challenges use live plants, but one uses cut flowers, and one uses dried flowers.  More than one challenge includes scavenging junk parts to incorporate into the piece in amongst the plants.  But everything is magical, and colorful, and the best entries and longest-lived contestants all tell some sort of story with their pieces.  The scale of the pieces is very large, but so is the sweep of what they end up doing with them. 

(Interesting side-note: Most of the episodes include an example piece designed by one of the judges who works professionally in flower design, which gets displayed at the beginning of the episode to get everyone started.  These pieces are always perfectly nice, but every episode at least one of the teams produces something that is way better, in part, again, because they dig a lot deeper in terms of story and meaning than was done for the display.  The results really show off that real art succeeds best when it succeeds both aesthetically and on deeper emotional levels.)

Creating giant art out of flowers is of course, fundamentally, a whimsical, imaginative sort of thing to do, but what’s wonderful about The Big Flower Fight is how successful the show is at promoting that whimsy and imagination, and bringing the viewer into the world-view of the creations presented.  (Either that or I just love plants so much I was always going to fall head first into all of those glorious rabbit-holes.)

As you might expect, the challenges scale up as the episodes progress, although for the first seven the contestants are all required to complete their work in a single day.  For the finale, the contestants get two days, and literally have to create installments the size of houses, in order, you guessed it, to bring to life some specifically assigned fairytale.  And one of those fairytales is Rapunzel.

By this point in the show, I was ready to dream up my own amazing response to that challenge.

And therefore, on that note, I have a number of notes for Henck and Yan concerning their own execution.  Though I should note, theirs was still totally amazing.  Because all of the contestants by that point were producing work that was absolutely amazing.  What they did with the roof of Rapunzel’s tower I think was particularly beautiful.  Still, I had a vision for this thing, and since I’m never actually going to execute it, I just now have to tell you about it for a little bit.

First, to circle back, the earlier episode using coastal plants had really caught my imagination, and I immediately thought how cool would it be if Rapunzel’s tower was set at the sea-side rather than in a forest, as is traditional.  Beaches and cliff-tops can feel so desolate in some ways, perfect for conveying Rapunzel’s isolation, and many of the plants from this category were odder looking than standard garden flowers, which would lend itself to the other-worldliness of a fairytale.

Next, why didn’t Henck and Yan use roses!?  There were lovely roses used in earlier challenges, so I know the production had them available.  And I personally feel like the brambles at the base of Rapunzel’s tower are a key story element, menacing and beautiful both together.  As much of an antagonist in the story as the witch herself, in some ways.  And who doesn’t like to see a tower with climbing roses?

Finally, the characters.  So, there were two very tricky requirements the contestants had to meet for this final challenge.  One was that they had to cover their giant structure with appropriate, amazing plantings in two days.  The other was that their final installation had to re-create at least two characters from their assigned fairytale.

For “Rapunzel”, Henck and Yan chose the witch and Rapunzel, who of course are the most-likely candidates.  But Rapunzel was very tricky.  How do you get plants to evoke beautiful, long hair?  And also, creating a pretty girl out of plant matter is just hard.  Neither of the other teams tried for a pretty girl (nor was one so strongly indicated in their fairytales).  Rapunzel as a character unfortunately put Henck and Yan at a disadvantage, and I think would have been a disadvantage to any team that had been assigned this fairytale.

But my vision came with an alternative!  How about instead, depict the witch and Rapunzel’s father?  Neither of them has to be pretty, and it is the interaction of those two characters that sets up the entire story.  You would need some additional props to get the installation to evoke “Rapunzel” rather than “Sleeping Beauty” if Rapunzel herself is not on set, but you could add Rapunzel as a baby being handed over to the witch (swaddling and a tiny face barely visible would cover that), and then, of course, the radishes (the rapuns) that Rapunzel’s father stole.  It would be more subtle in terms of story markers, but portraying the witch and the father would have been dynamic, and brought darkness and drama directly into the scene.

Anyway, that’s why I had to tell you about “Rapunzel” before I could tell you about all the fabulousness of The Big Flower Fight.  The magic and the story-telling of the show really sucked me in and made me wish I could participate.  But even without being able to participate, I still got to be dazzled by beautiful, spontaneous art for eight episodes in a row.

You should go be dazzled, too!