Boots creator Andy Parker promises he didn’t make “woke garbage,” no matter what the White House thinks. And, for the leftists out there, he doesn’t think he shilled for the military, either. “I certainly never set out to make anything that was propaganda. and I really reject the idea that it is,” Parker told Vanity Fair in an October 24 interview. “The fact that we seem to be situated between these two different sides is evidence of how the show wants to approach these really thorny, interesting questions. [Boots] is trying to navigate this in a nuanced way that isn’t so overtly strident in its attacks or in its politics. I think it’s after something more subtle.” Set in 1990, the show follows a closeted teenager named Cameron Cope (Miles Heizer), who impulsively joins the Marines to follow his enlisting best friend, despite the ban on gay people in the military.
Previously, Pentagon press secretary Kingsley Wilson called the show “woke garbage.” “Under President [Donald] Trump and Secretary [Pete] Hegseth, the U.S. military is getting back to restoring the warrior ethos,” Wilson said on October 16 in response to a request from Entertainment Weekly. “We 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.”
Parker says he’d be “very surprised if the Pentagon actually watched the show,” adding he didn’t want to portray an “unblemished view of the military.” Instead, he wanted to make “something that was more about the human experience of what it feels like for these guys in this particular time and place to go through this experience.”
“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,” Wilson added to VF, though there are no transgender characters on the show. Still, a Boots-tiful sentiment.
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