Army standards are “uniform and sex neutral,” a spokeswoman for the department of war has said
The Pentagon has accused Netflix of producing “woke garbage,” over the streaming service’s latest show centered around a gay man joining the US Marines. The series premiered amid a campaign by President Donald Trump and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth to end “woke culture” in the military.
US Department of War spokeswoman, Kingsley Wilson, told Entertainment Weekly, it does not support Netflix’s “ideological agenda.” The US military “will not compromise our standards, unlike Netflix whose leadership consistently produces and feeds woke garbage to their audience and children,” Kingsley said, adding that the Pentagon is currently focused on “restoring the warrior ethos.”
“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,” the spokeswoman stated.
Last month, Hegseth announced new personnel standards for the military, insisting on “male-level” fitness requirements to be able to face “life and death” situations on the battlefield. “Standards must be uniform, gender-neutral, and high. If not, they’re not standards,” he said at the time, arguing that any other approach would “get our sons and daughters killed.”
Back in February, the secretary of war also dismissed the motto “diversity is our strength” as the “dumbest” in military history. The Pentagon has faced recruitment shortages for years. 2023 marked the military’s deepest recruitment gap – of 15,000 – since the abolishing of the draft in 1973, according to a June report.
Republican lawmakers have previously blamed the problem on the department’s prioritization of diversity over military readiness, which allegedly drove would-be recruits away. A 2021 report commissioned by Republicans on the Senate Armed Services Committee found that the US Navy was focusing more on “wokeness” and diversity than winning wars.
Netflix has not responded to the Entertainment Weekly’s request for comment.
