{"id":2629612,"date":"2026-07-14T12:56:01","date_gmt":"2026-07-14T16:56:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/hollywood-mistakes-its-own-darkness-for-the-state-of-the-world\/"},"modified":"2026-07-14T12:58:17","modified_gmt":"2026-07-14T16:58:17","slug":"hollywood-mistakes-its-own-darkness-for-the-state-of-the-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/hollywood-mistakes-its-own-darkness-for-the-state-of-the-world\/","title":{"rendered":"Hollywood Mistakes Its Own Darkness For The State Of The World"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">22<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fhollywood-mistakes-its-own-darkness-for-the-state-of-the-world%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2629612&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>The passage reflects on the symbolic meaning of the cottonwood trees planted by Pa Ingalls in 1880 at his homestead in De Smet,south Dakota,representing family and protection. It recounts a personal story from 2020 when the author\u2019s daughter, obsessed with Laura Ingalls wilder, and the author themselves visit these trees amidst the pandemic, feeling connected to history. Visitors to the site, including those inspired by the Wilder books, typically show respect and gratitude, noting the community\u2019s trust and openness-places where historic buildings remain accessible but are to be treated with care, exemplifying a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/what-happened-after-sweden-took-a-hands-off-approach-to-covid-19\/\" title=\"What Happened After Sweden Took A Hands-Off Approach To COVID-19?\">high-trust society<\/a> grounded in family and neighborliness.<\/p>\n<p>The narrative criticizes Hollywood&#8217;s portrayal of the American West,suggesting that it distorts and undermines genuine stories of community and resilience,referring to this distortion as a form of cultural sickness. The author urges readers to skip superficial media adaptations, such as certain TV shows, and instead experience the actual history by reading the books and visiting De Smet, viewing these acts as a way to preserve authentic cultural values against destructive distortions propagated by mainstream entertainment.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"readmore\">\n    <button onclick=\"showReadMore()\" id=\"readmorebtn\">Read more&#8230;<\/button>\n<\/p>\n<hr id=\"line\">\n<span id=\"more\"><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Pa Ingalls planted a lot more than five cottonwood trees, but <a href=\"https:\/\/artteajannell.blogspot.com\/2010\/07\/ingalls-cottonwoods.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">the five<\/a> he planted around <a href=\"https:\/\/www.harpercollins.com\/products\/by-the-shores-of-silver-lake-laura-ingalls-wilderlaura-ingalls-wilder?variant=41143738433570\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">his new home<\/a> at the edge of De Smet, South Dakota in 1880 were more important than the others: \u201cWe\u2019ll make a square windbreak, all around the house. Ma\u2019s tree and mine by the door, and a tree for each of you girls on each side of ours.\u201d They were symbols of his family, of the people he intended to shelter inside the protective circle of those trees.<\/p>\n<p>In the summer of 2020, my daughter was 12 years old and obsessed with Laura Ingalls Wilder. Los Angeles was a nightmare, locked down and masked up in a fit of hysterical fear. So we put the tent in the car and started driving.<\/p>\n<p>We ended up sitting in the middle those five cottonwood trees, and we had company: A woman, about my age, called a friend on her cell phone to tell her where she was, because she wanted to say out loud that she was sitting under the trees that Pa Ingalls had planted. She was <em>sheltered by<\/em> Pa Ingalls, 140 years later, and she was struggling to catch her breath as she thought about it.<\/p>\n<p>People who visit De Smet because of their interest in the Ingalls family tend to end up at the family graves, and to approach the visit with solemnity and respect. They act like they\u2019re <em>grateful<\/em>, offering thanks.<\/p>\n<figure><\/figure>\n<p>Another thing you discover about the 19th-century Ingalls family homestead in the 21st century: They don\u2019t lock up. If you camp there, and you should, you can still visit the buildings after the people who run the place go home for the night.<\/p>\n<figure><\/figure>\n<p>They expect you to close up when you\u2019re done, and to treat the place with respect. And you do. That\u2019s why you\u2019re there.<\/p>\n<p>The cultural world of the Laura Ingalls Wilder books is the world of a high-trust society, where families and neighbors <em>try<\/em>. Pa Ingalls was a flawed man, but here we still are, sitting under the trees he planted. The carefully run historic sites that now occupy and describe the places where the Ingalls family lived treat the story with the respect it merits, knowing that they\u2019re stewards of a productive and family-focused culture that people still want to experience. <\/p>\n<p>This, on the other hand \u2026<\/p>\n<figure>\n<p><span><\/p>\n<blockquote data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<div lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">\n<p>Little House on the Prairie showrunner Rebecca Sonnenshine on why she rebuilt the frontier classic around a new lens:<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I think a lot of our pop culture portrays the West as men riding around with guns and solving problems with violence and posturing, but that is just not how it\u2026 <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/mdxI5Rkw53\">pic.twitter.com\/mdxI5Rkw53<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>\u2014 Fandom Pulse (@fandompulse) <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/fandompulse\/status\/2076675952738771024?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">July 13, 2026<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><\/span> <\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<p>\u2026 is a sickness. Ignorant, disconnected, seeing themselves in everything so completely that they can\u2019t see <em>the story<\/em> they\u2019ve inherited, Hollywood is smothering American culture. They\u2019re systematically extinguishing every light they discover, and then cursing the darkness they\u2019ve created as if the darkness comes from the thing they smothered. They\u2019ve invented a new product: <a href=\"https:\/\/christopherrufo.com\/p\/institutionalized-derangement\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Cluster B television<\/a>. It deserves to die. These voices are infinitely tedious and infinitely destructive, and we have to shove them aside. They have nothing to say, and they keep saying all that nothing in their loudest and most insistent voice. Nothing has ever been less interesting.<\/p>\n<p>Skip the show, read the books, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ingallshomestead.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">go to De Smet<\/a>.<\/p>\n<figure><\/figure>\n<hr>\n<p>      Chris Bray is a senior correspondent at The Federalist and a former infantry sergeant in the U.S. Army. He has a history PhD from the University of California Los Angeles, not that it did him any good. He also posts on Substack, at &#8220;Tell Me How This Ends,&#8221; <a href=\"https:\/\/chrisbray.substack.com\/\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Pa Ingalls&#8217; five cottonwoods symbolized family and protection<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2086,"featured_media":2629613,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/little-house-scaled.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[33651],"tags":[36487,82703,4361,4188,51127],"class_list":["post-2629612","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-western-journal","tag-cultural-critique","tag-darkness-2","tag-hollywood","tag-media","tag-society-2"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/little-house-scaled.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2629612","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2086"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2629612"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2629612\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2629619,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2629612\/revisions\/2629619"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2629613"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2629612"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2629612"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2629612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}