Trans Comics Reclaim ‘SNL’ Character Pat in New Documentary
David Spade once suggested to Julia Sweeney that her androgynous Pat character was ahead of their time. “Or behind,” Sweeney replied. “I always thought the joke was mostly about the people around Pat who were so flummoxed, so freaked out. We said at the beginning, the jokes are not on Pat.”
Despite her efforts, today’s audiences didn’t quite see that distinction, she itted: “If I did it again, I would make Pat more enigmatic and make it clear that it was about the other people.”
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A new documentary, We Are Pat, also wrestles with the legacy of Sweeney’s controversial Saturday Night Live character. Director Ro Haber itted to Rolling Stone that they had complicated feelings about the sketches. “Why am I laughing at something that’s meant to laugh at me? Why do I love Pat? Is Pat a non-binary icon or a transphobic trope of yesteryear?” Haber asked. “In exploring these questions, it was really important that the film embraced a spirit of curiosity and conversation rather than cancel culture and judgment.”
Those answers led to We Are Pat, “a film about transness that had humor at the heart of it.” The film, which premieres this weekend at the Tribeca Film Festival, features an all-star lineup of queer and trans comedians, as well as Sweeney herself, castmate Kevin Nealon and nonbinary SNL alum Molly Kearney. According to the film’s description on the Tribeca site, “the group goes on a mission to reframe the character — an unexpected opportunity to not erase Pat but reclaim them in a manner that eliminates ridicule and instills empowerment.”
Pat’s resurgence was inevitable given the cultural discussion around non-binary identity, says Karam Ann, a professor of TV studies, in a clip from the documentary. Contemporary discussions about subjects like appropriate pronouns have “reanimated Pat from the grave.”
Haber told Rolling Stone that Sweeney’s appearance in the film added new dimensions to their understanding of the character and the comedian’s “own gendered pressure as a woman trying to make it in the ‘90s boys club of comedy and SNL.”
“Pat grew out of familial and societal expectations of femininity that were placed on Julia during that time, and Pat was something of an escape for her,” Haber said.
Sweeney told the filmmakers that one reason she enjoyed playing Pat was that she “got to have a break from having to be a girl too.”
“That sense of reacting to a gender expectation placed on you felt really relatable to the comics in the film and me,” Haber noted.
