The Pentagon has criticised Netflix for producing what it calls 'woke garbage' following the release of the hit gay military drama Boots. The show, based on Greg Cope White's 2015 memoir The Pink Marine, follows a closeted teenager who enlists in the US Marine Corps in the 1990s.
Pentagon press secretary Kingsley Wilson said in a statement: 'Under president Trump and secretary [Pete] Hegseth, the US 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.' He added that the Pentagon would not compromise standards to satisfy an 'ideological agenda', accusing Netflix of producing 'woke garbage'.
Boots is currently the sixth most-watched show globally on Netflix. The Guardian's Stuart Heritage called it 'incredibly powerful', while The Hollywood Reporter noted it is 'critical of the military’s 1990s-era anti-gay policies' yet 'respectful of the military in many ways'. Lead actor Miles Heizer, who is gay, said the show's relevance to current events was unintended but 'upsetting'.
The criticism follows a broader backlash against Netflix from conservative figures. Elon Musk recently urged users to cancel subscriptions over a transgender character in the animated series Dead End: Paranormal Park. In June, US defence secretary Pete Hegseth ordered the navy to remove the name of gay activist Harvey Milk from a ship, citing the need to 're-establish the warrior culture'.
