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Netflix has once again expressed its displeasure of the Trump administration – this time on the release of its latest minidrama, boots.
The eight-episode series, which has become a sleeper hit since its release on the platform on October 9, is based on the 2016 coming-of-age memoir. pink sea By former US Marine Sergeant Greg Cope White.
In a statement addressing boots‘ LGBT+ theme, Pentagon Press Secretary Kingsley Wilson denounced Dreamer as “woke trash.”
he told Entertainment Weekly Military officials “will not compromise our standards to serve an ideological agenda, unlike Netflix, whose leadership continually produces and feeds nasty garbage to its viewers and children.”
Starring Miles Hayes as a fictionalized version of Cop White, the series is inspired by the author’s experience as a closeted gay teen who enlisted in the Marines at the time it It is illegal for gay people to serve in the military.
Born and raised in Texas, Cope White, now 65, was only 18 when he agreed to join the Army with his straight friend Dale. It was the summer of 1979 when both signed up for Marine Corps boot camp at Parris Island, South Carolina.
Cope White, a skinny, closeted gay boy, not only had to cheat to pass a physical exam, he also had to lie about his sexuality on recruiting paperwork. At the time, it was still several years before the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy was implemented in 1993, under which LGBT+ people were allowed to serve in the military as long as they remained silent about their sexual orientation, and decades before openly gay service members were officially allowed to serve in 2011.
Cope White made it through the grueling boot camp, where he unexpectedly found a group of “weird people and eccentrics” who would become his future brotherhood.
For six years, he served in the army as a communications specialist, keeping his sexuality a secret, although in the early 1980s he privately came out to his friends and family.
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Nevertheless, the burden of uncovering such a huge mystery weighed heavily on White, leading him to eventually leave the armed forces in 1985. “The Marines are a place to find your authentic self,” the author explains. BBC“But I wasn’t allowed to be my authentic self, and I couldn’t be inauthentic with people I admired and respected so much.”
After honorable discharge from the Army, Cope White pursued a career in television writing. One of his previous jobs he worked at the late norman lear As a writer on short-lived nineties sitcoms the powers that be And 704 houseLear, who had previously served as a technical sergeant in the Army Air Forces in World War II, connected with Cope White because of their shared military experience and formed a decades-long friendship.
Cope White said, “Norman liked the sergeant element of my life, and he liked exploring the stories of the ‘other’.” the new York Times“His years of mentoring and swapping stories with me about his time in the Army really gave me the foundation to start writing my book.”
in an interview with forbesHe explained that his inspiration for writing the book came from the tragic stories of young teenagers who committed suicide after being bullied for being gay.
He said, “It made me think about the hell I went through in boot camp and how hard it was to escape, but I just kept putting one boot in front of the other. I knew hopefully it would get better, but when you’re in it, it’s horrible.”
Produced by Andy Parker, boots This is not a biopic – Cope White, who wrote one episode, has made sure to make that clear. He explained, “Our showrunner opened it up to find a whole cast – many characters from the book, some newly created.” janefriedman.com,
“Cameron Cope and Ray McAfee are based on me and Dale, but we also take them to places I never did. And I’m very proud of the way Miles Heizer and Liam Oh have portrayed their characters. I write both of them and love them both – together and separately.”
To ensure complete accuracy of details, three Marine veterans, including Cope White, were involved in the writer’s room, while an additional three Marine veterans joined the production as military technical advisors.
In addition to the changed names and storylines, the series also features a significant shift from the 1980s to the 1990s, just before the Gulf War, leaving open the possibility of a second season.
Cope White was also excited about that timeline jump because “there was a lot happening in the nineties,” he explained. forbesReferring to the controversial “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.
“There were other men serving who were gay, and everyone had to pretend they weren’t. It was scary. In boot camp, I was very terrified of anyone finding out my secret, mainly because over the course of several weeks, I had started to form my own identity. For the first time, I was being told I was good at something,” he said.
“Being told I was doing good was so amazing to me that I didn’t want to lose it. I had finally found something I was good at, and I didn’t want it taken away. Meryl Streep couldn’t stick it out for 13 weeks like I could.”
boots Now streaming on Netflix.