rachelmanija | Confessions of a Prairie Bitch: How I Survived Nellie Oleson and Learned to Love Being Hated (Reply)

I am not a true fan of the Little House on the Prairie TV show. I've enjoyed the episodes I've seen, but I've only ever seen about five of them. (I do love the books, despite their problematic - to say the least - nature.) But when I went to a Little House convention with a friend who is a true fan, I got to hear Alison Arngrim speak, and instantly knew I had to read her memoir. Here she is watching a film of the play Peter Pan on TV as a child:

My favorite number was the bizarre sequence where Captain Hook and Peter Pan chase each other around a large papier-mache tree, singing "Oh, Mysterious Lady." A grown-up, somewhat older woman, pretending to be a young boy pretending to be a grown-up, younger glamorous woman by doing not much more than prancing around with a green scarf over her head and singing in a very high register, yet the guy in the pirate suit believes her. Wow. To me it was proof that grown-ups really are insane. And so began the launch of two major themes in my life: my love for and fascination with villains of all kinds, and my total lack of respect for traditional definitions of gender.

If you're not familiar with the TV show Little House on the Prairie, it was only loosely based on the books (same characters, mostly different stories), was a smash hit that aired for NINE YEARS, and starred Michael Landon as Pa, a sensitive sex symbol who often went shirtless and, Arngrim informs us, always went commando under his very tight jeans. Arngrim was a child actress who played Nellie Oleson, rich bitch and rival to the heroine, Laura Ingalls.

Arngrim was raised in a Hollywood family. Her mother was the voice of Gumby and Casper the Friendly Ghost. Her father, who was also her agent, was not-so-secretly gay. Her older brother Stefan played sad-eyed orphans. He was also a mentally disturbed sadist who beat and raped her on a regular basis. Since her parents brushed off her attempts to tell them, she decided she needed to move out to get away from him, and to move out she needed money, and to get money she needed a job, and acting was the only well-paid job a child could have, so she took up acting. She was eleven.

She was soon cast in Little House on the Prairie, where she found the family she didn't have at home. Her on-show enemy Melissa Gilbert became her best friend and the adults on the show were kind to her, with allowances for insanely dangerous stunts, long hours in extreme heat, and a painful blonde wig. But what she didn't see coming was the repercussions of becoming incredibly famous for being a villain...

Arngrim is very, very funny, and has a gift for the details that tell. She's also unflinching about the abuse she endured, and how incest was basically legal at the time: penalties for raping a child were minimal, and if the child was a family member, it was only a misdemeanor. As an adult, she campaigned to make child sexual abuse a felony, regardless of whether the child was a relative. She also did a lot of work raising AIDS awareness after her on-show husband contracted HIV.

Alison Arngrim seems like a really good person who's also funny, sharp, and down-to-earth. Unlike many stars who get typecast, she embraces the role of Nellie and everything it brought her, good and bad alike (but mostly good). I loved her memoir and highly recommend it if you can deal with reading about child abuse. If you liked I'm Glad My Mom Died, you'll definitely like this.

I listened to it on audio, and I recommend this method. She's a stand-up comedian, and her voice and impeccable timing adds a lot. Her imitation of Melissa Gilbert alone is worth getting the audio.