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Each incarnation of Little House on the Prairie has reflected the fears, hopes and characteristics of its time – since Laura Ingalls Wilder‘s semi-autobiographical children’s novels, first published after The Great Depressionto the television news he inspired, which began to fall in 1974 during the economic downturn and the oil crisis.
Netflix‘s restart itwhich will start on July 9, is the same. “Stories can span generations, which speaks to its culture,” says Luke Bracey, who stars in the new series as Charles “Pa” Ingalls, the patriarch of an abusive family. “This is a family trying to get along in the world.”
Crosby Fitzgerald, who co-starred as Caroline “Ma” Ingalls, has a similar definition for her enduring interest. He said: “People grew up with their parents and their parents, and it’s nice that many people know each other well.”
The story of survival on the American frontier continues to resonate with audiences. The Little House books have sold more than 73m copies, while the original series has resurfaced in recent years and in 2024 alone reached 13bn streaming minutes, making it the most watched show of the year.
Netflix is betting big on its latest iteration, and the unusual combination of culture and politics may help explain why. The startups have seen their best during the Covid-19 pandemic, when families are facing new and uncertain circumstances, not unlike the Ingalls family in rural Minnesota in the late 1870s. By one author he explained The 1932 Little House in the Big Woods (the first in the series) felt like an “isolation book” as she read the book to her son in the early days of the foreclosure.
You can see how the hoarding of toilet paper and masks, empty shopping malls and the skepticism with which people view their neighbors would have made this story even more powerful. Books and shows can be tempting to reject technology and a sense of belonging to the world as well building a houseinterests are growing among conservative Christians and environmentalists.
Cottagecore, a small online culture and aesthetic that promotes agriculture, would seem to be laying the groundwork for the show, with its focus on gardening, crafts, farm animals and food. Another TV show that has brought people to Little House on the Prairie is “translator”: home avatars and submissions, facts in TikToks and reels delivering babies or baking bread in gingham aprons. You can call it a trend or an attempt to escape the chaos and distractions of modern life, but either way it’s hard not to see these as the things that made the show’s reboot, and reboot, possible.
The books themselves were born out of a process of action. Rose Wilder Lane, Wilder’s daughter and journalist, returned to the family farm after the stock market crash of 1929 and began helping her mother edit her memoirs about her childhood on the frontier. Lane, who was considered a pioneer of the civil rights movement, gradually began to rewrite the burdens of what would become Little House in the Big Woods, transforming its characters into tough but hopeful heroes who refused government aid.
It was a powerful, intoxicating tale of American courage at a time when many were suffering and losing faith in those in power. Lane took in the impending anger Franklin D. RooseveltThe New Deal and Social Security programs, which affected him and other older pioneers as contributions and entitlements, emphasized the power of the individual to change his circumstances. An immediate success, mother and daughter published a follow-up, Little House on the Prairie, two years later. The series soon became one of the best-selling children’s books of all time. Lane later helped fund a libertarian academy in Colorado, the Freedom School, which counted The Koch brothersthe builders of modern conservatism, like its alums.
Conservatives have been feeling ownership over Little House on the Prairie. They are often referred to as possessors has been among Ronald Reagan’s favorite movies. When the reboot was announced by Netflix in January of last year, the new series was drawn into a culture war. “Netflix, if you resurrect Little House on the Prairie, I will make it my sole mission to destroy your career,” he wrote Megyn Kelly at X at that time. Melissa Gilbert, who played Laura Ingalls Wilder in the original series, to be expelled againhighlighting what he and many others see as the show’s most difficult legacy. “Ummm…look at the beginning again. TV doesn’t ‘woke’ more than we did. We fought: racism, addiction, anti-Semitism, misogyny, rape, misogyny and every other issue you can think of. Thank you.” When I spoke with Bracey, he pleaded with Kelly to watch the new footage before making up his mind. “I didn’t know about this. I don’t have any connection with the social network. But he didn’t watch the program … watch the program.”
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Although it will not live up to its age, and although the show’s star and artist Michael Landon was a lifelong Republican, the show distinguished itself from the literature by selling some of Lane’s liberal values for a culture that relied more on loyalty and cooperation, perhaps a response to the economic crisis of the 70s and mistrust. Watergate. The show dealt with incredibly dark issues and issues that were relevant to the times. There is a bad part, Sylviain which a young girl is kidnapped and raped by a masked man, impregnated and then shamed by the adults around her because she somehow brought it on herself. There was an incident where two young men unknowingly set fire to a school for the blind, killing two people.
Also breaking away from the literature, the show took a more sympathetic look at the people of color who were displaced during the colonial expansion of the American frontier. In SurvivalCharles Ingalls, the patriarch of the family, is trapped in a house with a federal leader and a Native American who wants to flee his country, the three hide from the storm. Ingalls, in a move that was very common on the show, stood up to the dispossessed. “People like you will take everything from that man,” Ingalls tells the driver. “His freedom, his country, almost his life.” The real Charles Ingalls and his family lived illegally on Osage land in Kansas before being forced out by the government in 1871, speaking to the stark disconnect between reality and the fantasy of heroism and virtue that we sometimes want to see in our entertainment.
The new incarnation of Little House on the Prairie once again depicts a family’s journey through the American West, but this time, showrunner Rebecca Sonnenshine (Housekeeper, Boys), draws faithfully from the books and focuses on the Ingalls family’s time on the Osage reservation in southeastern Kansas in the late 1870s. “Julie O’Keefe became an advisor to the Osage and made sure that this was handled with the care and respect it needed.”
Although the new series is more diverse than the original, there is still something bloodless and dirty about depicting an era that was undoubtedly full of brutality, subjugation and abuse. Everyone is so beautiful, clean and friendly.
If any interpretation of the Little House stories says something about its time, Sonnenshine seems to be saying something about the danger of allowing stand-up to exist. Megyn Kelley may not like the diversity seen on screen here, but she won’t struggle with the hardships or challenges of American life on the frontier.
