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Uncoupled: Relatable and Fun, but What About the Women?

NPH’s new Netflix show is important for LGBTIQ representation, but I feel weird about it. Maybe that’s just me.

Taru Anniina Liikanen
5 min readAug 6, 2022
Photo by Maico Pereira on Unsplash

I‘m never sure what to think about Neil Patrick Harris. He’s charming and talented, but there’s always a certain unease.

NPH has done some messed-up things, like the Amy Winehouse cake/charcuterie board he made for a past Halloween celebration, only months after the singer’s death.

Turning the death of a notoriously troubled woman with severe addictions who died much too young into a gnarly joke was normal in the 2011 world, but now it just screams misogyny. And he never apologized.

His character as Barney in How I Met Your Mother is also a notorious woman hater. It’s obviously not his fault, he’s just the actor portraying the ultimate insecure, elitist jerk. But it sticks in your mind.

On the other hand, he’s a good actor and — usually — seems like a nice person. But there’s something in his brand of snark that I just can’t feel comfortable with. So, watching Netflix’s new show Uncoupled, I wasn’t sure if I could tolerate it.

There’s good and bad. Good for LGBTIQ+ representation, not so good for the women. But it might just be me.

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Taru Anniina Liikanen
Taru Anniina Liikanen

Written by Taru Anniina Liikanen

Stand-up comedian and recovering political ghostwriter. Finnish by birth, porteña at heart. Bad jokes frequent.

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