{"id":761925,"date":"2026-07-14T07:21:17","date_gmt":"2026-07-14T07:21:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/761925\/"},"modified":"2026-07-14T07:21:17","modified_gmt":"2026-07-14T07:21:17","slug":"little-house-on-the-prairie-boss-on-woke-backlash-season-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/761925\/","title":{"rendered":"Little House on the Prairie Boss on Woke Backlash, Season 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

Note: This story contains spoilers from \u201cLittle House on the Prairie\u201d Season 1.<\/p>\n

Since news of Netflix\u2019s \u201cLittle House on the Prairie\u201d<\/a> reboot surfaced, the TV adaptation of Laura Ingalls Wilder\u2019s beloved book series fielded commentary from a number of conservatives \u2014 including Megyn Kelly, who warned<\/a> Netflix, \u201cif you wokeify \u2018Little House on the Prairie\u2019 I will make it my singular mission to absolutely ruin your project.\u201d<\/p>\n

Those comments haven\u2019t fazed showrunner Rebecca Sonnenshine, who notes the term \u201cwoke\u201d has been a \u201cvictim of semantic drift\u201d and now stands as a \u201ccatch-all for things people don\u2019t like.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe standard definition of \u2018woke,\u2019 as it had been for many years, was to be aware of social justice and inequality \u2014 I think that is a good thing,\u201d Sonnenshine told TheWrap. \u201cAny show that I would ever do would have those feelings, because I believe that those are important human qualities that we should all aspire to.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"\t\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n

But to Sonnenshine, her portrayal of Dr. George Tan (Jocko Sims), a Black doctor who was the Ingalls\u2019 closest neighbor in Independence, isn\u2019t all that boundary-pushing, with the showrunner explaining it\u2019s well-documented that Dr. Tan was well-respected and treated both white and Black settlers as well as Osage and Cherokee tribes. \u201cIt\u2019s interesting to me that that\u2019s so far-fetched for people \u2026 it was a more egalitarian place than I think people maybe realize,\u201d Sonnenshine said. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve seen it portrayed the other way, and I don\u2019t see any reason to put that back out into the world, because I\u2019m not even sure it\u2019s accurate,\u201d Sonnenshine continued, noting there was some \u201cguesswork\u201d involved with figuring out the temperature of Kansas when it came to racial prejudice beyond Ingalls Wilder\u2019s books and other literature from the time. <\/p>\n

\u201cKansas was a contested state for a while \u2026 it was a very interesting place, and the Ingalls were moving there very shortly after the Civil War,\u201d Sonnenshine said. \u201cI thought he would be a great character to explore some of these ideas through.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s not to say that Sonnenshine crafted 1870s Kansas as an utopia; both Dr. Tan and Emily (Barrett Doss) face some racism, especially from neighborhood know-it-all Jemma James (Mary Holland).<\/p>\n

\"Little-House\"Barrett Doss and Jocko Sims in \u201cLittle House on the Prairie\u201d (Eric Zachanowich\/Netflix)<\/p>\n

Sonnenshine also expanded the role of the Osage, who aren\u2019t \u201cfleshed out\u201d characters in the original series nor in the books, which saw the Ingalls \u201clooking in from the outside at people they didn\u2019t understand, people they feared, people they had no real close contact with.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was part of Sonnenshine\u2019s pitch to craft an Osage family living alongside the Ingalls that would give a voice to the perspective of the Osage as settlers moved onto their land via the Homestead Act of 1862, during which the government aimed to move indigenous tribes onto reservations while allocating the land to settlers.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s 2026 \u2014 it\u2019s time to reckon with some of the things that are in the books that have been problematic for people,\u201d Sonnenshine said. \u201cI don\u2019t want people to throw away these books \u2026 They\u2019re amazing books. It\u2019s OK to reckon with them a little bit and also tell a really good story about people being able to change \u2026 changing your mind is a good thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

That change of heart can be seen directly through Caroline Ingalls (Crosby Fitzgerald), who is somewhat skeptical of the Osage when the family first arrives in Independence, while Charles is much more friendly and optimistic. Those are qualities Sonnenshine noted are true to the book, \u201cbut what we allowed [the characters] to do was change.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Little-House\"Luke Bracey and Meegwun Fairbrother in \u201cLittle House on the Prairie\u201d (Eric Zachanowich\/Netflix)<\/p>\n

The caveats of the Homestead Act were part of what Sonnenshine wanted to spotlight within the \u201cmyth of America\u201d that the government fostered in the mission to encourage people to move West, as was the ideal of American individualism that encouraged the \u201cpull yourself up by your bootstraps\u201d mentality found in Ingalls Wilder\u2019s books, which made the individual surviving nature a central theme.<\/p>\n

But Sonnenshine doesn\u2019t think that individualism cuts it for the dangers of pioneer life, nor does she think Ingalls Wilder did. \u201cShe was writing during the Great Depression, and she wanted to give people hope that they could pull themselves out of this, so there was a little bit of an agenda there in terms of how you present a life that you are living, [a] fictionalized version,\u201d Sonnenshine said. \u201cThe truth lies somewhere in between.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sonnenshine explained that while the books see the Ingalls as quite isolated, that element was fictionalized, with the family instead living quite close to Independence. That shift opened up the adaptation from the Ingalls solely to those \u201cpresented as minor characters\u201d within the book that through research, Sonnenshine discovered \u201cplayed a larger role in the Ingalls\u2019 life.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"little-house-on-the-prairie\"The cast of \u201cLittle House on the Prairie.\u201d (Netflix)<\/p>\n

It was Sonnenshine\u2019s pitch to open up the world laid out by the books, but another part of her take on the series is the reason that some of Season 1\u2019s supporting characters won\u2019t be around next season. \u201cLittle House\u201d Season 2 will follow the Ingalls to their next adventure in Walnut Grove, Minnesota \u2014 where the original series took place.<\/p>\n

\u201cA part of my pitch was that we were going to follow the the ebbs and flows of the books, and they are fairly nomadic for quite some time,\u201d Sonnenshine said. \u201cI missed that from the original show, which was an amazing show and everyone loved it, and it was very special. But it didn\u2019t have the opportunity just because of the realities of television, and it didn\u2019t have the opportunity to do this. And we do now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even though the show will embrace a new locale, Sonnenshine said she\u2019s \u201calways going to look for a way to bring those characters back.\u201d \u201cI hope that it runs for a long time so that we get the opportunity to organically do it,\u201d she said, noting that Dr. Tan is buried in Independence, Kansas, and the Osage did not move to Minnesota. \u201cWe\u2019re trying to be faithful to to historical truth and still look for ways to keep our characters alive, however we can.\u201d<\/p>\n

As for when Season 2 might hit Netflix, Sonnenshine said the team is \u201ctrying very hard\u201d to bring the show back annually with production already underway.<\/p>\n

Sonnenshine revealed that iconic show characters including Nellie Oleson, her mother and Mrs. Beadle are being reexamined with the \u201csame spirit\u201d and \u201cdeeper complexities.\u201d \u201cThe actors are incredible, and everybody is just getting along famously out here,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

In an ideal world, Sonnenshine would \u201clove to do all the books and then look beyond.\u201d \u201cShe had a fascinating life,\u201d Sonnenshine said. \u201cWhen I think about Laura Ingalls Wilder, it\u2019s kind of amazing that someone lived through times that started in covered wagons and no electricity, and lasted all the way into airplanes and the atomic bomb.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLittle House on the Prairie\u201d Season 1 is now streaming on Netflix.<\/p>\n

\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"\t\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Note: This story contains spoilers from \u201cLittle House on the Prairie\u201d Season 1. Since news of Netflix\u2019s \u201cLittle…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":761926,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[88,12262,217,92,5135],"class_list":["post-761925","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-entertainment","tag-little-house-on-the-prairie","tag-netflix","tag-tv","tag-what-to-watch"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/761925","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=761925"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/761925\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/761926"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=761925"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=761925"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=761925"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}