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Jack Cameron Kay didn’t just bring Jones to life on Netflix’s Boots, but delivered a performance that resonated far beyond the character and the series — in many ways serving as an embodiment of what LGBTQ+ rights have become in the 2010s and 2015s. The show, set in the 1990s, features Sgt. Sullivan (Max Parker) as a slightly older closeted man whose mindset is still stuck on never coming out as gay for the rest of his life. Unsure of himself, Cameron Cope (Miles Heizer), the protagonist, sees Sullivan as a role model for how to survive as a gay man in the world… U.S. Marine Corps or otherwise.

And then comes Jones, who is like a glitch in the matrix when considered as a character that exists in the 1990s. Jones clocks Sullivan immediately, and tells Cope, who had been pretty oblivious the entire time. It is also Jones who tells Cope that looking up to someone who hates himself and lives in constant fear of being found out isn’t quite the bright future that they could dream of. Is living a secret life and having others pretend that they don’t know who you love really all that queer people could strive for?