Stereotypes In 'Little House On The Prairie'

Hollywood has created many ideas on life during Manifest Destiny, many of which are based on mainly modern stereotypes and very few accurate facts. In the video clip from “Little House on the Prairie”, many stereotypes are clear. This video is an advertisement for the television show, now on DVD, and is obviously supposed to make you want to buy the DVD version. The clothing the characters wear is a major example of this. Styles such as bonnets, aprons, cowboy hats, and suspenders were all in the video. Society seems to have painted this picture that, no matter the exact time period, females in history always wore bonnets and aprons. This is interesting, because while mainly true, this is also a major stereotype that people seem to imagine.

Meanwhile, cowboy hats are seen in a snippet of the clip, and cowboy hats seem to give off a “Wild West” vibe today.

Combined with suspenders, which are part of the stereotypical miner’s outfit, this definitely is a hodgepodge of stereotypes put on the male characters of “Little House on the Prairie” to fit today’s expectations. Another example of stereotypes seen in this video is how the setting is consistently wide open spaces filled with tall grass, and a log cabin which conveniently have a large attic for the children to sleep in. The open fields of grassland is the typical idea of a prairie to a person, which is a given considering the title of the show is “Little House on the Prairie”. The log cabin is what society would often picture a family living in during Manifest Destiny, when in reality people typically lived in houses made of buffalo chips (buffalo dung that has been burnt and dried). The large attic is also strange, considering the size of the house, but that will be later expanded on. The next stereotype is sort of miscellaneous, however equally important. The main characters seem to have a mild obsession with the idea of “home”, which eventually will cause some people to

raise an eyebrow. This stereotype is one easily inflicted upon pioneers in Manifest Destiny, considering they were walking hundreds to thousands of miles through lands they knew practically nothing about to find a “better life”, which gives the stereotype a tad of truth, but it is mostly just overstating that idea, like others.
The second video used was the trailer for the movie “Wild Wild West”. This movie is a breeding ground of stereotypes, from the costumes, to the sets, the props, everything is built off of the idea of this unruly society with sheriffs, bandits, and cowboys. The setting is highly stereotypical, with balloons, trains, and a rustic looking town in the desert. When the average person pictures the West during Manifest Destiny, they would most likely picture a saloon made from an old barn, surrounded by deserts sands with a tumbleweed rolling by: which is practically what this movie seems to do, at least with the setting, only with a much faster pace. The town also seems to have a habit of shooting guns randomly into the air, with no effect whatsoever. While it is plausible that this happened occasionally, the people who moved to these towns were people, and most likely were aware that if you shoot a bullet into the sky, it will come down and hit something, or worse, someone. One would hope that a majority the people expanding the United States of America were much more logical than that. The role of females in this movie was more than a tad sexist, as seen with the skimpy outfits, and consistent hoop skirts, if there was any dress at all. People were much more modest than today in the 19th century, so this is quite unrealistic. While men and women were far from treated equally, women were not simply pretty little objects in a low cut dress and a hoop skirt to be ogled at, as this movie seems to believe happened. The outfits of men were stereotypical as well, though not nearly as offensive and objectifying. The typical fedora and sweatvest combination was seen many times in the clips from the film. Detectives are often associated with the West, and fedoras with detectives, so obviously, film making companies would combine fedoras and the west to feed the media's preborn stereotypes. The music in the trailer was also very upbeat and peppy, with consistent vocalizing and repetition of phrases. Altogether, the trailer from the movie “Wild Wild West” is purely made of stereotypes, and no historical research.
The third trailer used was from the movie “The Revenant”, which seemed to focus on Mountain Men. It obviously had more research than “Wild Wild West”, although the outfits and characters had some flaws. The Mountain Men were dressed in all animal skins and pelts, which considering the snowy mountainous region made sense, however seemed to mostly make the well known “Manly Man” stereotype stand out even more. This, paired with the frequent usage of shotguns, made the movie seem very dark and violent. The lead’s motive was his dead son, who was killed in an accident that probably had happened to many people before and after him, because the mountains are known as dangerous for a reason. The characters all seemed to be quite angry past this point, and be trying to escape the mountains. This trailer was sort of difficult to follow, because it was very fast paced and included a lot of middle aged men yelling at each other. Speaking of which, the cast was practically all white, middle aged men wearing brown fur. Some may argue that this is for “historical accuracy”, but this is hogwash because females are not like cellphones, and only invented in the 1970s. In reality Native American women who took of a role similar to Sacagawea could have influenced the plot, or one of the characters could have brought along his wife, but once again gender stereotypes strike in a movie chop full of other stereotypes. “The Revenant” had a trailer that hard to follow, sexist, and had so many stereotypes that it could not possibly be as historically accurate as it claims.
Many things in the trailer of “The Lone Ranger” can be criticized, however the most prominent details can be clearly selected.

At the beginning of the list would be the casting choices, particularly Johnny Depp, a white American male, playing a Native American, despite him having no Native heritage himself. This is something that has been questioned regularly by people watching the movie, and it honestly boils down to that racism still exists today, and the whitewashing of films, while less frequent, still happens. Native Americans were slaughtered in Manifest Destiny in cases like the Trail of Tears, with a myriad of other tragedies enforced by the United States Government. Having a white person playing a Native American can help reinforce the stereotypes, mainly because the actor will be less aware of the unintentional harm that they are inflicting. “The Lone Ranger” also has the issue of guns randomly being shot off in the middle of a town, not dissimilar to “Wild Wild West”. As previously stated, it isn’t likely that a successful society was started by people who don’t even understand gravity. The typical tools were used, such as handguns with rotating bullets for accuracy. While the randomly shooting guns are probably supposed to give an exciting and uncontrollable edge to the movie, it really is just stereotypical and expected at a certain point. The older looking town, salons, environment, and setting in general were also very similar to “Wild Wild West”.

However, in a couple of shorter scenes trains are featured, and from what it seems have been hijacked. The hijacked train plot line has been in thousands of films, and has gotten a tad old. These are the most obvious mistakes and stereotypes made in “The Lone Ranger”, most of which could have been easily corrected.
Each of the portrayals of Manifest Destiny in each movie had its own flaws. “Little House on the Prairie” had an unnatural obsession with home and family, which is presumably not all that people during this time period talked about. The fact that the family lives in the middle of a grassland in a log cabin is also sort of strange, because grasslands typically don’t have a large number of trees, which are required to build log cabins. A majority of the time, pioneers lived it houses made of burnt buffalo dung. Most likely, the film companies changed the dung house to make the show more appealing. Meanwhile, in “Wild Wild West” the acting seemed to be alright, if a tad dramatic, but generally the portayls seemed to fit the characters. Meanwhile, “The Lone Ranger”, the previously stated Johnny Depp issue is still relevant. It shares the drama of “Wild Wild West”, with the touch of overacting. Finally, “The Revenant” was mostly middle aged men yelling and screaming, so the portrayal of mountain men most likely wasn’t as accurate, considering their day to day life was probably much more calm.
The people behind these movies all had to motive to make lots of money, so conforming to the stereotypes of Manifest Destiny and the West and giving society what it wants is more likely to achieve that goal. Obviously, the portrayal and ideas displayed in the movies will try to grab people attention, so that they want to see the movie, and the companies automatically make money, whatever their opinion. Casting famous people is also likely to sway critics in your direction, because if they are well known as a good actor, people will have previous bias towards them that will give you a higher chance of drawing people to the theatre, and the companies making more money. The conforming to the stereotypes is probably done to help people understand who is who, what is what, and better understand what is going on in the film.
A way that the productions could be changed to make them more accurate is maybe to diversify the casting, with a larger mix of male and female roles, and people playing the actual race of the character. Something “Little House on the Prairie” could do is maybe change the dialogue, and talk less about home, but more what they are doing, and maybe have more individual goals that can be seen. “The Revenant” could include less screaming, and more trying to figure out what to do in the situation. “The Lone Ranger” would have been better off using less stereotypes, and also casting and actual Native American instead of Johnny Depp, to avoid the discriminative undertones. “Wild Wild West” could include some actual historical facts, instead of a schormasboard of stereotypes thrown together with a stimulating plot to make a movie. And all the movies could have used less randomly shooting guns into the air, because that trope seemed to be going off every ten seconds in some of the trailers. In summary, Hollywood has some unique interpretations of life during Manifest Destiny, most of which could stand to get their historical facts checked, and not just be considered fact with a high box office success.