‘Boots’: Norman Lear’s Last Show Is About a Gay Marine in the ’90s

Late into Boots, two young Marine recruits joke about how, when you think about it, military culture is pretty damn gay. Spending all day surrounded by literal swinging d---s? Check. Being ordered to “mount?” Check. Calling shirts “blouses?” Check.

“The only thing the Marines don’t supply us with is lube,” one quips.

On paper, Andy Parker and Jennifer Cecil’s (The Umbrella Academy) new Netflix series is an intriguing proposition. We’re living through a time of ultra-heightened gender anxiety, so the military—the face of textbook good ol’-fashioned American masculinity—could be a fascinating setting for exploring who gets to be considered “man enough” in this country, and the costs of being that at all.

In reality, Boots—which was inspired by gay veteran Greg Cope White’s 2016 memoir Th