Would the T.V. series "Little House on the Prairie" (1974-1982) be considered a Western?

In literary terms, the books (and therefore TV show) are classified as Western. The location was considered “west”, and there was a lot of conflict, “wild Indians”, and minimal government/laws.

“It as no guns or desperadoes or pioneer gunslingers or rangers. It has ranchers but no cattle drives.”

There are so many categories of living so not all have the usual guns and fights etc

Imagine is one just researched“Pioneer Home life” it would be vastly different than the desperadoes that we are so used to viewing on TV or movie show since domestic life wasn’t all that exciting yet it takes place in the Pioneer era so it is a Western category story.

By the way Pioneers were in every Country so each would be made of a range of variants as to lifestyle etc
( Think about Ukrainian, Polish, Japanese,Chinese,French Pioneers and many more)

I would not call it such.

According to two dictionaries I have, a “western” is about western life. No mention of horses or guns. So I say the answer is yes.

No,I would call it a pioneer/frontier early American film

In this definition, no.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_(genre)

@YARNLADY : I don’t recall any “wild Indians” in the show “Little House on the Prairie.”

Rather than getting hung up on definitions and details (which often is missing the forest for the trees), to me the western is as much a certain feel (which, honestly, I’m not really sure I can put into words) rather than specific tropes or locations. Little House on the Prairie, simply put, just doesn’t feel like a western. It’s a saccharine family-friendly drama of the kind that were popular in its day. On the other hand, a series like Breaking Bad, despite it’s contemporary, largely urban, setting, use of modern technology, drug themes and lack of cowboys or savage Indians, very much has that western feel.

Westerns involve morality issues that must be faced in a hash landscape with no consistent law enforcement, or where law enforcement is as much of the environmental struggle as the landscape. That’s why The Mandalorian is essentially a Western.

LHOTP was, as others have mentioned, more like The Waltons, where the morality was clearly defined and straying from that moral certainty was punished clearly and decisively.

Gah, I have yet to watch the Mandalorian. I was waiting until all episodes were available, but by the time that happened I’d already grown annoyed by the whole “Baby Yoda” thing.

I always considered it a tale of religious cowpoke, his wife was sexy though.