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Introducing: Wilder · The Bechdel Cast

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: She's a Hollywood Western. She's Jack Kerouac, but in a
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: n ap dress with braids.
• 0:07
  Speaker 2: She is one of the most important American children's authors
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: of the twentieth century.
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: She's the basis for a television show still watched around
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: the world. I literally wake up in the middle of
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: the night and go, somebody somewhere is watching Little as
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: the Brow.
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: Women will come up to me, cry and saying, my
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: childhood was miserable. In Little House in the Prairie was
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: my escape.
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: She's been called a hero, a racist, a feminist, and
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: a propagandist.
• 0:36
  Speaker 3: Consider a Native child in their classroom reading it aloud,
• 0:40
  Speaker 3: and they come to that sentence, the only good Indian
• 0:43
  Speaker 3: is a dead Indian.
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: She is Laura Ingles Wilder. Did you know she was
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: a real person. In the nineteen thirties, Laura Ingles Wylder
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: wrote the nine Little House on the Prairie books based
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: on her childhood on the American Frontier Way or another.
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: She's been with us ever since. Oh I love I
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: loved that.
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: I loved Little House on the Prairie.
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: It's just a perfect book. I've loved Laura for as
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: long as I can remember. As a kid, I used
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: to map out her travels on my parents Atlas, and
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: I'm not alone. Every summer, thousands of people from around
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: the world pilgrimage to her little houses in tiny towns
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: from the middle of the country. Now I'm going too.
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: We're literally on the prairie. I went in search of Laura,
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: the real Laura. Who is this person I love so much?
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: Should I love her? The story of Laura is just
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: as complicated as the story of America, because she is
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: America for better and worse.
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: So if we pretend the past was not as controversial
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: and difficult and racist as it was, then how are
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: we going to deal with the racist issues were grappling
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: with today in.
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: A country currently at odds with itself and its history.
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: Could there be a better time for this exploration? There's
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: never been a better time than now. I'm Glennys McNichol,
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: and this is Wilder. Listen to Wilder on the iHeartRadio app,
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.