A spokesperson tells EW that Donald Trump is “restoring the warrior ethos” to the military: “We will not compromise our standards,” a statement reads.
- The Pentagon has reacted to Netflix’s programming strategy following the release of gay military series Boots.
- A spokesperson tells EW that “the U.S. military is getting back to restoring the warrior ethos.”
- The statement called Netflix out for an alleged “ideological agenda.”
The Pentagon does not support what it calls Netflix’s “ideological agenda,” a spokesperson tells Entertainment Weekly amid the release of the streaming service’s new gay military series Boots.
As the Miles Heizer– and Vera Farmiga-starring show continues to hold on the platform’s viewership charts since its Oct. 9 debut, Pentagon Press Secretary Kingsley Wilson replied to EW’s inquiry about the LGBTQ-centric project with a statement against the network’s programming trends.
“Under President Trump and Secretary [Pete] 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,” Wilson’s statement begins.
Kingsley continues, noting that 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.”
EW has reached out to Netflix for a response.
Hegseth, a former Fox News personality, has drawn criticism for his anti-LGBTQ actions. In June, he ordered the name of Harvey Milk, an assassinated politician who was a gay rights activist and former sailor, to be scrubbed from a Navy ship.
Earlier, Hegseth began attempting to remove transgender military service members from their posts, amid the Trump administration’s wider push to limit diversity and inclusion initiatives.
In September, Hegseth again made headlines for requesting the presence of top military officials at a meeting in Virginia, where he vowed to end “woke” culture in the armed forces and proposed directives for “gender-neutral” or “male-level” fitness guidelines, per the Associated Press.
Based on former Marine Greg Cope White’s memoir The Pink Marine, Boots is inspired by his time as a closeted gay teen who joins his straight best friend (played by Liam Oh in the series) at a U.S. Marine Corps boot camp run by the ruthless Sgt. Sullivan (Max Parker) — all while his aloof mother (Farmiga) ponders his whereabouts from home.
Heizer, who is gay, leads the series and recently revealed that he connected with his character on a personal level.
“I had a very, unfortunately, classic gay coming-out story. It was a nightmare, and everyone was upset,” Heizer said in a Variety interview.
He added, “I’m lucky my sister, who’s my best friend, could not have cared less and was very there for me. My friends around me were super-supportive, and things have gotten so much better in that regard with my family over the years. But at the time, I definitely had the old Christian upbringing.”
