Uncoupled: What Is The Quilt Mike References? | Screen Rant
In Netflix’s Uncoupled, Michael (Neil Patrick Harris) makes an offhand comment about not having unprotected sex because all he can think about is his “name on that quilt” and the younger guy he's with doesn't know what he's talking about. The scene takes place in one of many disastrous attempted hookups reminiscent of Sex and the City in Uncoupled. The context of the scene is somewhat humorous, but the reference itself speaks to a deeper trauma that affects the gay community.
While regaining his footing in the gay dating scene after the abrupt end of his 17-year relationship with his partner, Colin, Michael has a meet-cute with a younger man at a grocery store. Back at the other guy’s apartment, Michael is thrown off by resistance to using a condom. Michael tries to explain his concerns about sexually transmitted diseases and being added to “that quilt” over his prospective partner’s insistence that protection is unnecessary for gay men in the modern day. Similarly, when Michael is later pressured to let someone Botox his butthole, he bails on the coercive situation.
The quilt Michael references is the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt. This interactive memorial commemorates those lost to AIDS with quilt panels made by their loved ones. The Quilt consists of nearly 50,000 panels with the names of over 105,000 people lost to the epidemic across three decades. Michael is in his 40s and would have reached his teens in the 1990s, while the other man is a millennial and likely in his 30s, so Michael has a greater awareness of the AIDS epidemic from 1981 to the early 1990s, especially through friendships with surviving gay elders like Jack (André De Shields from Tick, Tick…Boom!).
Uncoupled's reference to the quilt speaks to a larger problem between generations of LGBTQ+ people. Many people in the younger queer community don't know the full details of queer history because it is not taught in school and the AIDS epidemic left the community thin on surviving elders to pass down history. As a result, a large portion of millennial and Gen-Z gay and queer folks are not always aware of how badly the AIDS epidemic and other historical impacts in the 1980s and 1990s traumatized and devastated the gay and queer communities.
Michael makes other references the younger man in the scene also doesn’t get, like a reference to Annie Hall, but the difference in Michael’s reactions to the younger man’s lack of recognition emphasizes the importance of the AIDS Memorial Quilt and the lingering impact of the AIDS epidemic on the gay community. The reaction might also offer a hint at some of the underlying themes of Uncoupled's season 1 ending and the show's overall premise, as many gay men Colin’s age did not expect to reach mid-life. Michael ignores the question about who Annie Hall is but is aghast that this gay man is unfamiliar with The Quilt, which is not only deeply important to people who lost loved ones to AIDS but also the world's largest folk art piece.
Michael’s repeated problems with changes in the dating scene since he was single 17 years before highlight concerns about the gay community forgetting their history. Netflix also opened up an opportunity to explore the impact of the AIDS epidemic on young men in the late 1980s and early 1990s with same-sex attraction in Stranger Things by revealing that Will Byers has romantic feelings for Mike. Between Stranger Things and Uncoupled, Netflix may be on track to help address the lack of awareness around the AIDS epidemic and other oppression experienced by the queer community in recent history.
Source: Screenrant
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