These Boots were made for “woke”-ing, and that’s just what they’ll do, it seems. When Netflix’s Boots premiered, few expected it to spark one of the most bizarre cultural debates of the year. The series, a coming-of-age military drama about a closeted Marine recruit in the 1990s, shot to the top of Netflix’s charts within days of release, but it also found itself in the crosshairs of newly appointed Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who publicly derided it as “woke garbage.”

Well, they say there’s no such thing as bad publicity. Now, co-showrunner Andy Parker is breaking his silence — and he’s not interested in feuds. Speaking with Collider’s Maggie Lovitt, Parker addressed the uproar and explained why he’s more focused on the show’s impact than its detractors.

“To be honest with you, other than feeling like I didn’t think it was well considered because it didn’t seem like it was coming from a place of having watched or understood the show, what I’ve been most concerned about is making sure the show continues to find an audience. So, from that standpoint, I do hope that people who might not have heard about the show may have picked up, in the controversy or in the headlines, some inkling that there was a show out there that they needed to check out and see. So, I wasn’t worried about the quote-unquote controversy per se. I’m delighted, as you just brought up, that more and more people seem to be finding the show.”

While the Pentagon’s statement ignited online backlash, it also gave Boots what you may know as the Streisand effect — negative publicity that drove even more viewers to check it out. “We always knew that this was going to be a show that would have to be a word-of-mouth, and it would have to roll out in that way,” explained Parker. “It’s not based on big IP. We don’t have a ton of giant stars attached. These are relatively new actors for most viewers. So, it was going to have to be a discovery.”

All Publicity Is Good Publicity for ‘Boots’

Parker’s perspective is pragmatic — even optimistic, as he explained. You can’t help but see the positives in such a situation and take it for the unexpected win that it turned out to be. “So, however people get to discover the show, I think, is really actually a positive thing,” he continued. “Because what we’re finding is that when people actually click on it, start the experience of watching it, it’s delightful and heartening to me to hear anecdotally from people that gave it a chance, ‘I didn’t know what it was going to be. Now it’s 3 AM, and I’ve laughed, and now I’m crying, and I’ve watched the whole thing.’”

Boots wasn’t even designed to be a headline-making lightning rod for controversy — and that’s exactly what makes its current moment so striking. The series, co-created by Parker and based loosely on the real experiences of gay service members prior to the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” era, as told in Greg Cope White‘s The Pink Marine, has resonated with both veterans and civilians. “That is very gratifying to me because what we always wanted was for the show to be unexpected to people,” Parker said. “It’s a real benefit, in a way, for people to come to this show not really knowing what it’s going to be, and then to be surprised at the emotional experience that the show delivers.”

Boots is streaming now on Netflix. Stay tuned at Collider for more from Lovitt’s conversation with Parker.