Pentagon criticises Netflix for making ‘woke garbage’ after gay military drama | US television
The Pentagon has accused Netflix of making “woke garbage” following the release of popular gay military drama Boots.
Based on Greg Cope White’s 2015 memoir The Pink Marine, the series tells the story of an undercover teenager who joins the United States Marine Corps in the 1990s.
In a statement originally shared Entertainment WeeklyPentagon press secretary Kingsley Wilson said: “Under President Trump and the secretary [Pete] Hegseth begins to revive the US military warrior ethos. “Our standards are elite, uniform and gender neutral because the weight of a backpack or a person does not care whether you are male, female, gay or straight.”
He added: “Unlike Netflix, whose leadership continually produces and feeds woke garbage to its viewers and children, we will not compromise our standards to satisfy an ideological agenda.”
Stuart Heritage of The Guardian called the series “incredibly powerful”, currently the sixth most-watched series globally on the platform. Hollywood Reporter He said the show was “he is critical of the military’s anti-gay policies in the 1990s” but is also “respectful of the military in many respects and very positive about the brotherly aspects of military life.”
Miles Heizer, a gay actor, stars in the leading role. spoke recently about the relevance of the show. “When the shooting of the series started [in 2023]I don’t think we intended to convey that message that is so relevant to the service today,” Heizer said. “But then, of course, as we were doing this, all of this started happening. Although the series is set in 1990, it is very interesting that Boots sheds light on what is actually going on. “This is very sad.”
The backlash comes as many on the right criticize Netflix for its diverse content. Earlier this month, Elon Musk led an attempt to get users to cancel their subscriptions by resurfacing a clip showing a transgender character in the animated series Dead End: Paranormal Park. Musk, who has a transgender daughter, appealed to his 227 million X followers to cancel for “the health of your children.”
Zach Barack, the character’s trans voice actor, responded: don’t write: “You can be afraid of the trafficker all you want, but kids and parents tell me it saved their lives!!”
Netflix remains the overwhelming market leader in streaming, with 301.6 million paid users in more than 190 countries.
In June, Hegseth, the former Fox News commentator and now US defense secretary, ordered the US Navy to remove gay activist Harvey Milk’s name from one of its ships. The decision was made because Hegseth was “re-establishing the warrior culture” of the army.
Sean Penn, director of the Oscar-winning movie Milk, and screenwriter Dustin Lance Black criticized this move. “These guys are idiots,” Black told the Hollywood Reporter. “Pete Hegseth doesn’t seem like a smart man, a wise man, a knowledgeable man. He seems small and insignificant. I’d love to introduce him to warrior LGBTQ people who have had to be warriors our whole lives to live our lives openly as we do.”
The news also comes as the Pentagon is under fire for insisting on signing a new set of policies that would limit the quality and credibility of reporters’ work. In response, many prominent news organizations surrendered their badges.
