Little House On The Prairie Goes Woke

Years ago, some of us camped out in front of our TVs on a Monday night with the whole family to watch Little House On The Prairie.

There was the heart-warming, over-arching theme that family is everything. That home is where the heart is (a young Laura Ingalls said it herself), that some friends are like family. There were lessons on resilience, standing up to bullies (anyone remember that dreaded Nelly Olson?)

Little House also taught us that women can also do tough things, like rebuilding towns and tending to crops (on stolen land). Little House also tacked issues like adoption and addiction (The Edwards family). Very seldom, between my grandmother, my mother and myself, was a dry eye in the house. When we heard of Michael Landon’s death, we all mourned him and cried again. My Little House book collection was my cherished possession from Barnes and Noble. I could not wait to read every single page of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s works.

In reality, Little House On The Prairie tacked some modern-day issues without putting the spotlight on them. Mrs. Oleson was called out for her racism in one episode. But the reboot has critics scratching their heads and wondering when the Ingalls will fly the pride-progress flag outside of their homestead or post one of those “In This Little House” lawn signs outside.

There’s no other way for me to put this: Netflix did indeed woke-ify Little House on the Prairie. This new version makes a deep bow to contemporary concerns about the politics of the source material. Some of the Ingalls family’s closest new friends on the show are an Osage couple, a black doctor and black storekeeper, and a French Canadian woman who wears trousers and practices free love.”–Rebecca Onion, Slate