Netflix’s new LGBT+ military series Boots has climbed the streamer’s charts after the Pentagon dismissed it as “woke garbage”.
The series, based on Greg Cope White’s 2016 memoir The Pink Marine, follows a closeted teenager (played by Miles Heizer) from Louisiana who impulsively enlists in the US Marine Corps.
It is set in the Nineties, when being openly gay in the US military was still illegal.
Last week, Pentagon press secretary Kingsley Wilson hit out at the show, saying the US military “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 remarks come after the Trump administration’s ban on transgender troops in the military service.
But Wilson’s comments may have actually boosted the show’s popularity, with the series climbing to No 2 on the US Netflix charts and No 4 in the UK.
“I guess we have to give some credit to the Pentagon there, don’t we?” series creator Andy Parker told Vanity Fair.
“I certainly never set out to make anything that was propaganda and I really reject the idea that it is,” he said.
Parker added: “I would be very surprised if the Pentagon actually watched the show. The premise itself instigates or incites some kind of reaction or assumptions. What I would invite people to do is to watch the show, and see how they feel about the questions the show is trying to provoke.”
He continued: “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 now.
“What our show shines the light on is, what is the cost of that? What’s 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 honourably and with dignity?”
Read about the true story that inspired the Netflix series here.
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