The Pentagon has criticized Netflix for its new show “Boots,” which centers on a closeted gay Marine recruit, labeling it as “woke nonsense” advancing a particular “ideological agenda.”
Officials from the Trump administration spoke out against the series, which follows a gay teen from Louisiana as he joins a US Marine Corps boot camp in the 1990s, a time when openly gay recruits were prohibited.
“Under President Trump and Secretary [Pete] Hegseth, the US military is refocusing on rebuilding the warrior ethos. Our standards are now elite, consistent, and sex-neutral, as the weight of a rucksack or a fellow soldier doesn’t consider one’s gender or sexual orientation,” Pentagon press secretary Kingsley Wilson stated in a message to Entertainment Weekly.
She further stated that the military “will not lower its standards to cater to an ideological narrative, unlike Netflix, whose management repeatedly produces and promotes woke nonsense to its audiences and young viewers.”
The show, which features Miles Heizer and Vera Farmiga, debuted on October 9 and has persistently ranked among the top 10 most-watched programs on the streaming platform.
The series premiered just days after Hegseth introduced new stringent standards for military personnel — stating that “individuals in dresses” were not allowed in US combat forces, and emphasized the necessity for all to meet “male-level” fitness benchmarks due to the life-and-death nature of operations.
“Standards should be uniform, gender-neutral, and maintain a high bar. If they’re not, they aren’t standards. They’re merely suggestions—suggestions that could cost lives of our sons and daughters,” he remarked at that time.
