Category: Little house on the prairie
Welcome to WokeNut Grove: Sneak peek at Netflix’s ‘Little House on the Prairie’ reboot
Because Hollywood has been unable to create anything new for at least 20 years, Netflix is “rebooting” “Little House on the Prairie.” That almost certainly means trouble.
No stories have been more important to me than the fictionalized autobiographical series written by Laura Ingalls Wilder. As a poor child in a single-mother broken home, we didn’t have luxuries growing up. Some kind soul donated a boxed set of the “Little House” books to an “angel tree” Christmas drive where poor families could choose a gift for their children.
The Ingalls family leave their cabin in Wisconsin to make way for an indigenous family violently displaced by pioneer gentrification.
I opened my present to find this set of books. I read and re-read them so many times they were in tatters when I reluctantly threw them away a few years ago. I’m lucky to have a good friend who bought me a new hardback set for Christmas.
‘House’ away from home
The values of independence, self-sufficiency, owning your mistakes, repentance, and forgiveness inside a loving family and community was everything I wanted life to be. It taught me values and gave me hope for something better than the frightening home in which I was raised.
The long-running television series based on the books was my favorite show. We watched it when it was new, and we watched it in reruns. Viewing the original “Little House” series today, one is struck at first by how sentimental it seems. But on second thought, it probably reads that way not because the original was truly that sappy, but because our society and our selves have been so coarsened in the 40 years since the show aired.
Look at where we are today as the release of the new Netflix version approaches. It used to be that when new movies or TV shows came out, prospective viewers would ask questions like: Will the cast be good? Will the premise hold up for more than one season? How are they going to pull off the special effects that the premise demands?
‘Middle’ mangled
What we weren’t talking about was whether the show was going to beat us over the head with painfully au courant political and social dogma. The thought didn’t even occur to us before about 2014. Now, it’s the only thing any aware adult can think about when they see yet another “reimagining” of a book or TV series.
Reimagining? A better word is “profanation.” These reboots often explicitly insult the original version in order to signal how superior the current show runners are to their “racist,” “sexist,” “homophobic,” and otherwise unenlightened forbears.
Look what Hulu has done to the 2000s-era sitcom “Malcolm in the Middle.” The original show — that is to say, the real show — was about an “eccentric” family that drove middle child and IQ genius Malcolm nuts. The reboot, titled “Malcolm in the Middle: Life’s Still Unfair,” brings back most of the original cast with some 2020s-style mandatory identity insertions.
Malcolm’s best friend Stevie has gay-married a man and adopted a boy child. But wait, there’s more! Malcolm and his brothers have a new “sibling” named Kelly who’s not a girl. She … sorry, they is … sorry, are “non-binary.”
The piano-music-special-moment-interlude is like getting teeth drilled without anesthetic. The very obviously female Kelly tells her … darn it, tells they’s parents, “I was like 5 when I started feeling wrong.”
Take an antacid before you watch the clip.
RELATED: The ‘Malcolm in the Middle’ reboot is so woke even Hollywood hates it
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Back to the Future Prairie
I know that I don’t have to watch the new “Little House on the Prairie,” but I do have to. Won’t be able to stop myself, even though I know it’s probably going to make me mad. I know the original books still exist, and I know that I can watch the original show. But irrational though it may be, just the possibility that Netflix is going to inject modern-day narcissistic depravity into something so pure — well, it feels like it’s going to contaminate my memories of something wholesome.
So let’s rip the Band-Aid off and get the hard feelings out of the way before the show comes out. Here are my predictions for the first season of the new and undoubtedly to-be-improved “Little House on the Prairie.”
Episode 1: ‘Decolonizing the Big Woods’
The Ingalls family leave their cabin in Wisconsin to make way for an indigenous family violently displaced by pioneer gentrification. We see the covered wagon pull away from the cabin as Chief Whining Shrew refits the log house with dreamcatchers, essential oils, and a slot machine by the side of the road.
They set out across the prairie headed for a town where they can make a new, sustainable life. In the closing scene, a sign ahead reads Welcome to WokeNut Grove. A young indigenous woman in traditional garb halts the wagon and warns Pa, “Bruh — do not EVEN call me squaw.”
Episode 2: ‘School’s Out’
Mary and Laura’s first day of school teaches them a lesson more valuable than the three Rs: empathy. The one-room schoolhouse is presided over by Mx. Beadle, a spinster — sorry, a non-binary educator — who keeps breast binders in her desk for the children who can’t afford affirming clothing.
When Laura wrinkles her nose at the proffered tube top, Mx. Beadle makes Laura write, “NON-MEN AND NON-WOMEN ARE VALID” 50 times on the blackboard.
Episode 3: ‘Farmer Boi’
We’re introduced to the spoiled rich kid bully, Nelson Oleson. Nelson was assigned female at birth, but with the help of his domineering mother, Harriet, Nelson discovers he was actually a boy inside all along. In a surprising twist, it turns out Nelson’s little brother is also actually his little sister, Wilhelmina. Everyone accepts this statistical improbability, AND YOU’D BETTER TOO.
With his golden ringlets peeking out from under a newsboy cap, Nelson taunts Laura on the way to school, shouting, “Sissy! Sissy! Sissy!” until Laura pushes him into Plum Creek. Nelson’s binder pops off during the scuffle, revealing his gender assigned at birth. Laura has to work after school at the Oleson Mercantile sewing Nelson new binders by hand while Wilhelmina gets to make doll clothes on the newfangled sewing machine.
Episode 4: ‘No One Is Free Until We’re All Free’
With the crops failing, Pa goes to the town sawmill to look for work. He’s about to join the crew when he notices that all the working hands are white men. Pa calls for the immediate shutdown of the mill until the diversity-in-work committee can get to the bottom of why so many white men have been allowed paying jobs.
The mill stays shuttered throughout the summer under a banner proclaiming “NO JUSTICE, NO PIECE (OF LUMBER).” Meanwhile, the town’s white men are conscripted into a chain gang to build a wheelchair hoist so that Hester Sue Terhune, the town’s wise black paraplegic, can wheel over to the cutting blade and take her rightful place as foreman. Three white families in tents die from exposure that winter, and the town celebrates with an ice cream social.
Episode 5: ‘Horizontal Work Is Work’
When a family of gypsies — sorry, travelers — rolls into town, they are met with prejudice and bigotry as they try to open an honest business for Roma sex workers. Realizing the violent oppression woven into WokeNut Grove’s founding documents, the town council repeals the ban on bawdy houses. The Pekrul family opens the Galatea Galerie, where rooms are let by the half-hour.
Mary goes to work at the Galerie but comes home with a severe case of harlot fever. Bedridden for weeks, when Mary tries to get up, she realizes something is terribly wrong. The camera zooms in on her vacant eyes as she cries, “Pa! Pa! I can’t see my gender identity!” Ma, Laura, Pa, and Carrie take on extra jobs to save up so Mary can afford to go to the Iowa School for the Trans.
The season ends with Ma applying homemade dye to Mary’s hair made from crushed lavender. Credits roll as a train whistle approaches town.
Stay tuned for Season 2.
