Boots, Netflix’ new queer military series, receives rating boost after Pentagon labelled the show “woke garbage.” The show, based on Greg Cope White’s memoir The Pink Marine, follows Cameron Cope (Miles Heizer), a closeted gay teenager, in the Marine Corps. Set in the 1990s, the series focuses on Cope’s time in basic training with his best friend (Liam Oh) and his homosexual awakening when it was still illegal to be queer in the military.
“The U.S. military is getting back to restoring the warrior ethos,” Kingsely Wilson, department of war press secretary says. Officials will “not compromise standards to satisfy an ideological agenda, unlike Netflix, whose leadership consistently produces and feeds woke garbage to their audience and children.”
@netflix Recruits, your #BOOTS trailer is here. Marching onto Netflix October 9
Even during the government shutdown, officials take the time to criticize art, the LGBTQ+ community, and the awareness of systemic prejudice (being “woke”). Despite Republicans controlling every branch of government, they continue to attack minority communities for existing and using they as scapegoats.
Boots ranks second on the global Netflix chart with 9.4 million views and 55,200,000 hours watched, according to Pink News.
“I guess we have to give some credit to the Pentagon there, don’t we?” says creator Andy Parker to Vanity Fair. “I certainly never set out to make anything that was propaganda, and I reject the idea that it is.
“What I would invite people to do is to watch and see how they feel about the questions the show is trying to provoke. We were on an emotional mission. There’s politics involved in all of these questions: What’s happening to trans people now, and the policies that are being inflicted on trans service members.
“What our show shines the light on is, what is the cost to the people who are affected by those policies? What is the cost to the institution itself, when they have to inflict that on service members who want to serve honorably and with dignity?”
All transgender military personnel were dismissed by president Trump in August. Through an executive order, he decided their identities were “incompatible with active duty.”
Photos courtesy of social media
