'Little Woke on the Prairie': Netflix’s left-wing rewrite draws fire from Wilder fans
“When white settlers come into a country, the Indians have to move on. The government is going to move these Indians farther west any time now. That’s why we’re here, Laura.”Modern readers may grimace when Charles “Pa” Ingalls explains to his young daughter Laura their family’s plans to settle in the free land of the Osage Indian-dominated Kansas prairie. But their indignation (justified as it may be) doesn’t change the fact that it was the dominant settler perspective regarding Native American territory in the days of Laura Ingalls Wilder, whose timeless series “Little House on the Prairie” is the fictionalized retelling of her real-life experiences as a pioneer girl. Books apparently need their patina scrubbed off — especially if they are to reach the masses via cinema.It shouldn’t surprise anyone that Netflix — the same streamer behind “Bridgerton,” where they butchered a Regency England period drama with race-swapping and modern gender politics — couldn’t help but tamper with Wilder’s beloved classics. It is still deeply irritating though. Julia Quinn’s early 2000s “Bridgerton” octology is humorously classified as historical smut, so if you must “wokeify” something, I suppose this would be the series to do it. But Wilder’s “Little House on the Prairie” remains not only one of our best windows into 19th-century pioneer life, but also a deeply cherished saga that for many readers was, and still is, a pillar in childhood (not to mention in American literature itself). Trashing treasures Why is it that every time Hollywood takes on what should be the very delicate task of visiting the literary canon, it feels the need to sanitize and polish and tinker — as if classics were dusty attic relics in need of a little TLC?Any antique dealer knows you don’t remove patina from metal. And why would you want to? It’s this multi-colored, time-kissed surfacing that infuses a bygone treasure with wonder. The oxidation that clouds old mirrors with silvery deterioration and turns copper roofs vibrant verdigris carries the soul of the object’s story.But for some reason, Hollywood can’t accept that literature, too, undergoes an aging process, although it’s alchemical rather than chemical. What happens when a new literary tour de force bursts into the cosmos is something bibliophiles equate with magic. When a book is deemed so resonant it becomes immortal and joins the constellation of other magnum opuses in the literary firmament, the expectation is that it is left alone, as virtually all other worldly treasures are. Imagine darkening the skin of Jesus and the apostles in Leonardo da Vinci’s “The Last Supper.” It may be accurate since these men were from the Middle East, but it would be unthinkable. Imagine chopping down a tree in a national forest because a man was unjustly hanged from its branches 100-plus years ago, or adding Barack Obama to Mount Rushmore to satisfy modern demands for “representation.”Whatever the reasoning, these modifications are inconceivable because tampering with an original masterpiece, potential flaws and all, is dishonest at best and blasphemous at worst. Tragically, historical accuracy, author’s intent, and sentimentality are treated as unimportant when it comes to literature. Books apparently need their patina scrubbed off — especially if they are to reach the masses via cinema. Of course, book-to-film is a suboptimal path. It’s impossible to translate the entirety of a novel to the screen, but it is possible to respect the author’s original work by not injecting your own characters, dramatic subplots, themes, and moral messaging.Why we protect the past NBC/GettyBut Netflix, obviously, didn’t do that, hence the fiery outrage of Wilder fans. The author’s slow pace, slice-of-life tales of pioneer living, stereotypical portrayals of the Osage tribe, and limited black characters simply wouldn’t do for showrunner Rebecca Sonnenshine. Like virtually all Hollywood decision-makers, she had the hubris to make history more palatable for our chronically offended, progressive culture that apparently has such delicate sensibilities and short attention spans it must be spoon-fed a nicer, more thrilling version of 1800s prairie life. Netflix’s adaptation of “Little House on the Prairie,” which debuted on July 9, breaks in more ways than not from Wilder’s originals. I will share them with you here without spoiling too much. Osage overhaulIn the books, Native Americans are viewed as strange and potentially savage obstacles that must be removed to make room for white settlers. The Ingallses are suspicious and curious about their Native neighbors whose land they intend to possess, but this culminates in some trading and occasional interactions. The family never seriously grapples with the Osage perspective, seeks meaningful friendships with tribe members, or questions their own assumption that the land will eventually become available for white settlement. Their worldview largely reflects the prevailing 19th-century ethos of manifest destiny.Not so in Sonnenshine’s version. Just moments into episode one, it becomes clear that the Osages will take front and center stage in this season, which covers book three. Not only do they inhabit several main character roles, but the entire season hinges on whether they will sell their land to the American government. The book treats this as an inevitability; the show portrays it as a deeply complicated moral dilemma. In Wilder’s accounts, the Osage removal is a straightforward event for the Ingallses, with little emotional weight beyond relief at securing the land. But on Sonnenshine’s prairie, some of the settlers, including the Ingalls family, question and even grieve the circumstances of the Osages’ departure. A few friendships later and the assumptions of manifest destiny they arrived with quickly give way to a crisis of conscience.At one point in the show when the land treaty is still hanging in the balance, Pa, who has befriended an Osage and come to sympathize with the tribe’s predicament, declares, “This is their home. They have the right to decide whether or not they stay or go.” The real Pa Ingalls wouldn’t recognize his cinematic doppelganger. By the end of season one, viewers, especially those who read Wilder’s series, feel browbeaten with the only acceptable message when it comes to colonization: white settlers bad, indigenous victims good. Forced DEI Black characters, who are almost nonexistent in the books, are expanded heavily in Netflix’s “Little House on the Prairie.” Dr. George Tann, the local black doctor who appears a handful of times in Wilder’s series, plays a much more robust role, complete with his own complicated past, a romantic subplot, and a hero narrative. Other black characters are invented entirely, including a local shopkeeper named Miss Emily Henderson, who seems to be included in the series primarily to remind viewers that white settlers weren’t just racist toward Native Americans but black people too. Caroline “Ma” Ingalls, who has little interaction with black people in the books and holds the typical settler era’s distant but polite perspective, is so outraged by Miss Henderson’s exclusion from Independence’s “Women’s Society” that she becomes an outspoken advocate against racial exclusion.It’s a really nice sentiment — truly! — if it weren’t completely fabricated and estranged from the real Ma Ingalls. Feminism in, faith out NBC/Getty Another woke element worth noting is the addition of a female character named Lacey Aubert, a French-Canadian widow who runs a saloon on the outskirts of town. As a sexually liberated, trouser-wearing, pistol-wielding lone wolf who scares off thieves and rejects a life with the man she loves because marriage is “for other people,” she reads far more like today’s ideal woman than one drawn from the 1870s prairie.I guess we shouldn’t be surprised. What’s a Netflix production without feminist undertones? One can almost feel Wilder, who even describes herself as a headstrong tomboy, rolling in her grave. But I bet she gives an extra agitated toss for the fact that her family’s faith is significantly downplayed in the show. Even though the real-life Ingallses were Bible-reading, faithful Christians, Netflix’s on-screen versions have a far more ambiguous spiritual life. Sure, hymns are sung, a church building is erected, and a generic “hope” lifts the Ingallses’ troubled spirits, but by no means is their life saturated in the traditional Christianity Wilder’s real family was devoted to.In fact, their faith is so understated in the show that during a Christmas scene, the Ingalls women remind each other that the day isn’t just about presents — it’s about food too. No mention of Christ’s birth other than a flash scene of a roughly hewn nativity set Laura plays with. Instead, the show disturbingly focuses on the Osage Great Spirit Wah-Kon-Tah, with multiple mentions of his guidance and wisdom. Not Wilder’s story That about sums up the wokeness in Netflix’s “Little House on the Prairie,” but it only scratches the longer list of complaints rolling in about this season. Many Wilder fans have expressed significant dissatisfaction with the additional plot lines added for sheer drama, essentially rendering the originals lacking or boring. Netflix’s Pa is haunted by his past; Ma wrestles with fidelity, wondering if life would have been better if she’d married another man; Mary gets her own coming-of-age romantic subplot; Laura, who practically symbolizes modern progressive empathy, befriends an Osage girl named Good Eagle. Even Mr. Edwards, a minor character in the books, gets a heavy backstory and emotional arc.It’s just all wrong. Wilder’s books are about resilience, family, and the pioneer spirit. Sonnenshine’s version is about those things too, but the core messaging is heavily filtered through modern guilt, diversity lessons, and critiques of manifest destiny. Don’t get me wrong — it’s a good story. It’s just not Wilder’s story.
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