Today in thoroughly unsurprising but still pathetic news: The Trump administration took aim at Netflix’s queer military show Boots, calling it “woke garbage.”
Pentagon Press Secretary Kingsley Wilson slammed the hit coming-of-age series in an October 16 statement to Entertainment Weekly.
“Under President Trump and Secretary Pete Hegseth, the U.S. military is getting back to restoring the warrior ethos,” Wilson’s statement reads. “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.”
It’s not the worst opening one could imagine, especially given that Boots was inspired by real-life gay veteran Greg Cope White’s memoir The Pink Marine, which details his time serving in the Marines when being gay in the military was still illegal.
However, Wilson then added that Pentagon officials “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.”
It’s certainly a choice to describe a show inspired by a gay Marine’s lived experiences as an “ideological agenda,” but I digress. Wilson’s comments come as the Trump administration continues to target LGBTQ+ service members, from enacting a trans troop ban in May to stripping gay rights legend and Navy veteran Harvey Milk’s name from a military ship.
This isn’t the first time that the Trump White House has gotten into petty pop culture beefs on main. Last month, after Ariana Grande reposted criticism of the Trump administration’s anti-trans and anti-immigrant actions, White House spokesperson Kush Desai responded, “Save your tears, Ariana… [Trump] even signed an executive order just like magic that paved the way for the FTC to crack down on Ticketmaster for ripping off Ariana Grande’s concert-going fans. Get well soon, Ariana!” (“Just Like Magic” and “Get Well Soon” are both the titles of Grande songs).
Meanwhile, earlier this week, after Chappell Roan declared, “Fuck ICE forever” during a Los Angeles concert, Department of Homeland Security assistant secretary for public affairs Tricia McLaughlin responded with an alarmist statement “Pink Pony Club is good. Pedophiles are bad. That’s who we’re getting off our streets. Get a grip.”
Boots might be the latest pop culture entity to be dragged into the Trump administration’s petty orbit, but it certainly doesn’t need the White House’s help boosting its popularity. At the time of writing, the show is currently one of Netflix’s most popular shows, sitting at the number two spot behind Monster: The Ed Gein Story.
During a recent interview with Them, Boots star Miles Heizer said that the dramedy’s unique tone and queer sensibilities are what drew him to the project.
“What I loved about this [show] was that it’s viewed through this queer lens with this very unique sense of humor that I think is very specific to the gay community,” Heizer said. “Telling a gay story in this setting is pretty uncommon.”
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