Boots premiered on Netflix in October. Courtesy of Netflix
Based on Greg Cope White’s memoir detailing his time serving in the Marines while gay during “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” the Netflix series debuted at No. 6 on the streamer’s English TV list with 4.7 million views.
Before knowing that Norman Lear was involved, co-showrunner Andy Parker says: “I had been a closeted teenager myself, and was also considering joining the Marines. I never ended up going down that path, but there was a lot in Greg Cope White’s book, The Pink Marine, that resonated for me. When I found out that Norman was involved, one of my very first conversations with him was about who gets to be counted as an American. There was another personal connection for Norman as a veteran, which is about the military as not being monolith.”
My Book:
Parker comments on the reaction to the series, “It’s a thoughtful story about what it means for these young men to face themselves and go through this transformation in Marine Corps Bootcamp, which offers brutality and extremity and also unexpected opportunities for humanity, grace and even humor.
What some writers have misread and missed, because it is subtle, is the moments when they step around the training, when they do the thing that is off book, when they stop being the warrior or the Marine or the stoic masculine man and see each other as people, is when the show depicts that the real positive change happens. The show is not making a case for uniformity or brutality. It’s saying quite the opposite.”
Adds star Miles Heizer, “We didn’t anticipate it being so relevant to things that were happening today. It’s sort of unfortunate how quickly things seem to be moving backward a bit. I don’t think that we expected the show to hold up a mirror to what’s actually happening right now. But my hope would be that people watch the show and can see the actual human cost of these policies and the effect that they have on actual people.”
Boots (2025): Netflix Series about Queers in Military
Boots
Based on Greg Cope White’s memoir detailing his time serving in the Marines while gay during “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” the Netflix series debuted at No. 6 on the streamer’s English TV list with 4.7 million views.
Before knowing that Norman Lear was involved, co-showrunner Andy Parker says: “I had been a closeted teenager myself, and was also considering joining the Marines. I never ended up going down that path, but there was a lot in Greg Cope White’s book, The Pink Marine, that resonated for me. When I found out that Norman was involved, one of my very first conversations with him was about who gets to be counted as an American. There was another personal connection for Norman as a veteran, which is about the military as not being monolith.”
My Book:
Parker comments on the reaction to the series, “It’s a thoughtful story about what it means for these young men to face themselves and go through this transformation in Marine Corps Bootcamp, which offers brutality and extremity and also unexpected opportunities for humanity, grace and even humor.
What some writers have misread and missed, because it is subtle, is the moments when they step around the training, when they do the thing that is off book, when they stop being the warrior or the Marine or the stoic masculine man and see each other as people, is when the show depicts that the real positive change happens. The show is not making a case for uniformity or brutality. It’s saying quite the opposite.”
Adds star Miles Heizer, “We didn’t anticipate it being so relevant to things that were happening today. It’s sort of unfortunate how quickly things seem to be moving backward a bit. I don’t think that we expected the show to hold up a mirror to what’s actually happening right now. But my hope would be that people watch the show and can see the actual human cost of these policies and the effect that they have on actual people.”