The Pentagon is taking aim at Netflix.
A spokesperson has issued a statement about the streamer’s leadership when asked about its hit drama Boots, which recounts the true story of a gay Marine cadet’s bootcamp experience in 1990.
Pentagon Press Secretary Kingsley Wilson didn’t directly criticize the pro-LGBTQ series, but replied to an inquiry about the show from Entertainment Weekly with a statement condemning the streamer’s programming in general.
As confirmed by the Pentagon press office: “Under President Trump and Secretary 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. 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.”
The sentiment was likely prompted by the streamer’s recent controversy surrounding its canceled animated show Dead End: Paranormal Park, which features a transgender character and has resulted in right-wing backlash against the streamer and calls for a boycott by the likes of Elon Musk.
Boots has frequently ranked No. 1 on Netflix’s Top 10 TV Shows list since it was released earlier this month. The show stars Miles Heizer as a closeted Louisiana teenager who enlists in the Marines and is based on the memoir The Pink Marine by Greg Cope White.
Boots asks near the start of its season, “Becoming a man? What does that actually mean?” It’s arguably the theme of the series and a question that, as Slate pointed out in its review, Secretary of War Hegseth endeavored to answer during his much-debated speech to military brass earlier this month during which he endorsed the “highest male standard” and slammed “males who think they’re females.”
Boots is critical of the military’s 1990s-era anti-gay policies — under which gay military members had to conceal their sexuality or risk being criminally charged — and depicts the hardcore culture of the Marines as rather toxic. Yet the show is also respectful of the military in many ways and is rather positive about the brotherhood aspects of enlisted life. The show has a 93 percent positive critics score and an 88 percent positive audience score on Rotten Tomatoes. It wouldn’t be at all surprising if the show helped the military earn a few new recruits, despite dramatizing all the brutal difficulty of bootcamp life.
