It's been a long several days in our household. My spouse goes in for a colonoscopy this morning, and instead of just having a 24 hour getting ready process, it has stretched over 3 days, with increasing food restrictions and increasingly effective laxatives. He got up at 2 for the last dose of prep liquid, and I had trouble falling back asleep, so I got up too.
He was watching an episode of Little House on the Prairie, so I made some tea and joined him. For over a year, I've been noticing that if that show is on, it sucks me right in. One time I was at a car repair place, the only one in the waiting room, and the show was on. It was an episode about a blizzard and people who needed to be rescued out there on that prairie and fear of dwindling resources. The car passed its safety inspection, and I was tempted to stay, just to see how it ended.
Of course, I knew how it ended. One of the appeals of the show is that there is always a happy ending. It was made back in the 70's, made to be a family show, and the people who made it took their task seriously. At the time, I remember being miffed (as a child viewer, mind you) that the TV show created new plot lines that weren't in the book. As an adult, I am in awe of how they stayed true to the spirit of the books--and in fact, elevated the themes and spirit.
Little House on the Prairie is one of the rare TV shows that came into being because of the reading habits of girls. I did some "researching" to see if I was remembering correctly. Sure enough, various entertainment executives noticed their daughters reading the books over and over again, moms reading the books too, and they took note. The fact that family members read the books may have helped the creators stay true to the books.
I say creators, but in my reading this morning, I discovered how deeply Michael Landon was involved in the creation of the series, down to researching every day life during the time period for pioneers. There's a reason why the show looks so authentic.
I suspect the interpersonal relationships are not realistic depictions of life on the frontier. The care and compassion, particularly for children, are much more 1970's than 1870's. For that matter, the level of care and compassion for all the characters is much more 1970's than 2020's.
I feel this aching sadness for the society I thought we were building in the 1970's based on this TV show. I also laugh at myself, since other TV shows of the same time period, shows not made for the whole family, show we were headed towards something different. And here we are, in the 2020's, in a society that's different yet again.
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