There can be no better way to ensure that BOOTS, a Netflix TV series about a bullied gay youth who joins the Marines, is a mega smash than having it condemned so publicly by the Pentagon.  If you had thought that the ex FOX newsreader now in charge of what is still legally the US Defense Department was busy enough spending $6 million of taxpayers summoning all the Top Brass from around the globe to lecture them, amongst other things, about being fat, then you were wrong. He seems to have had time on his hands to watch all 8 episodes of BOOTS, and like The Orange Man in the White House finds it quite unnecessary to let the truth, and/or facts, get in the way of his statements.

Not only did his Press Secretary come out with ‘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’  But just like The Orange Man he used the occasion to literally defame Netflix  “whose leadership consistently produces and feeds woke garbage to their audience and children.”

Boots is a 1990s-set military drama that debuted on Netflix on Thursday, October 9, and is based on Marine veteran Gregorgy Cope White’s memoir The Pink Marine who was gay at a time when being gay in the military was illegal and who carried the heavy burden of his secret throughout his time in service. It stars Miles Heizer (13 Reasons Why) who plays  Cameron Cope, a closeted gay teen who joins the United States Marine Corps on a whim after high school graduation. He thinks that joining alongside his best friend, Ray (Liam Oh), will make it better.

However Cameron massively underestimates how difficult boot camp would be. Reality hits him like a ton of bricks, especially after Sgt. Sullivan (Max Parker) puts extra pressure on the young recruit. Sullivan is actually being investigated for an alleged same-sex relationship, and he can sense that Cameron is queer, too. He tries to make Cameron quit by making his training harder, but Cameron rises to the occasion throughout the season and proves to himself and his commanding officers that he has what it takes to be a Marine.

Its a powerful piece of theater which has some comic relief but most of the time makes for very uncomfortable  tough viewing as we witness the sheer brutality of a system that tries to justify itself that it makes Marines out of boys. The strong ensemble features its own dramatic turns as the story reveals the reasons for joining for each member of the squadron, as well as what happens to them during training.  Each episode features a different phase of Marine Corps boot camp — recruit receiving, drill training, combat water survival, martial arts, the gas chamber, marksmanship training and The Crucible — and follows the recruits as they transform from civilians into Marines.

Heizer’s stunning central performance makes for compelling viewing, but another element that contributued to the overwhelming feeling of authentic storytelling was the fact that the producers had the balls to cast gay men to play gay roles. Besides Heizer the remarkably handsome (!) British actor Max Parker portrays Sergeant Liam Robert Sullivan, “the consummate elite recon Marine” who struggles with a career-ending secret; Sachin Bhatt (Queer as Folk)  portrays Major Wilkinson, the secret love interest of Max Parker’s character, Sgt Sullivan; Angus O’Brian portrays Thaddeus Beau Sterling Hicks, one of the new U.S. Marine Corps recruits alongside Cameron. Unlike his peers, Hicks is mischievous and something of an oddball who often gets into trouble; Jack Cameron Kay who plays Jones the only one knowingly gay cadet

Andt Parker the show’s creator lead a team of some 7 writers and 5 different directors yet both the content and ths style of the 8 episodes flow seeminglessly : one of the later is filmmaker Silas Howard who we will be talking more about BOOTS very soon.