Officials at President Donald Trump’s Pentagon are not fans of Netflix’s “Boots,” a real-life military drama following a closeted gay teen recruit.
Pentagon Press Secretary Kingsley Wilson called the new series “woke garbage” in a statement obtained by Entertainment Weekly.
“Under President Trump and Secretary [Pete] Hegseth, the U.S. military is getting back to restoring the warrior ethos. Our standards across the board are elite, uniform, and sex neutral because the weight of a rucksack or a human being doesn’t care if you’re a man, a woman, gay, or straight,” Wilson’s statement said. “We will not compromise our standards to satisfy an ideological agenda, unlike Netflix whose leadership consistently produces and feeds woke garbage to their audience and children.”
“Boots” is based on the Greg Cope White’s memoir “The Pink Marine” and released on Netflix on Oct. 9. It stars “13 Reasons Why” actor Miles Heizer as Cameron Cope, who impulsively follows his best friend Ray McAffey (Liam Oh) in enlisting in the military in the 1990s. The series takes place four years before President Bill Clinton’s controversial Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy went into effect. Notably, the show stars several out gay actors, including Angus O’Brien as a frat-boyish enlistee and Max Parker as a closeted drill sergeant.
“When the show started filming [in 2023], I don’t think we intended to have this message that’s so relevant to serving today,” Heizer told Variety in an interview. “But then of course, as we’re making it, all these things started happening. It’s very interesting that ‘Boots’ shines a light on what’s actually happening now, even though the show is set in 1990. It’s upsetting.”
He added, “It is also wild to have a team of predominantly queer people behind the scenes. To have so many queer people and women coming together to make this show, I think is very rare.”
Variety has reached out to Netflix for comment on the Pentagon’s statement.
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