Leave It on the Prairie

This morning, I read two stories about the new Little House on the Prairie television series (which I don't plan to watch). Not surprisingly, they both focused on how it differs from the 1970s version and from the books.

The first was brief, and talked only about the way the new show incorporates the Osage in one episode. In the original series (and in the book), the Osage men are unwelcome raiders who take food and jabber in a "savage" language. In the new series, in contrast, the Ingalls family shares the food and Laura sits and talks with them, learning that it's the Ingalls who are squatters on Osage land — which is the historical truth of the situation. The show even creates a Native best friend character for Laura!

The other story was by the Star Tribune's T.V. critic, Neal Justin. He gives details on the new show's greater historical accuracy (the physical hardship and post-Civil War trauma), but also the way it attempts to clean up the books' and the Ingalls' antipathy toward Native people. In the show Ma Ingalls, for instance, quickly becomes a champion for the Osage ("with Jane Fonda-like spunk," according to Justin). That fits with what the other article said about how Laura's interaction is portrayed toward the Osage men who visited.

The Little House books have fallen from favor among librarians, and Laura Ingalls Wilder's name has been removed from a prestigious library award in 2018 because of these very issues. 

What happens when children watch this rosy new show and then read the books, only to find the racist version in print? We can bet that book publishers will reissue the books with new covers tied in to this series. Where is that Native best friend character? Why are the Osage not even named as such, but instead only called savages?

Who does it help to have this show made at all? Only the owners of the production company and network, the Ingalls Wilder estate, and to a much lesser extent the people who worked on it. 

New ideas are what we need in media — not old, racist stories that need to be left to be understood in their context, not yanked into the present and promoted in a bright, shiny update.