By It feels fitting to watch a movie like We Are Pat as part of this year’s Tribeca Film Festival. This past year has seen numerous celebrations about Saturday Night Live’s 50th anniversary, from feature films to reunions and even concerts. It just makes sense, whether intentional or not, to watch a movie examining one of SNL’s most unusual and polarizing recurring characters and their strange impact on pop culture.
For those of you who don’t know who Pat is, Pat was a gag character during the 90s on SNL. Played by Julia Sweeney, the big joke about Pat is that no one knows what their gender is. That’s it. All attempts at figuring this out result in vague answers and general annoying responses, with people’s more desperate attempts to figure it out driving them either to madness or rage. Since then, an interesting question has arisen that We Are Pat tries to answer – is Pat a trans icon? Is it possible to retroactively make a character like Pat a positive role model for trans and non-binary people?
We Are Pat
Director: Pat Haber
Release Date: June 8, 2025 (Tribeca Film Festival)
That question lies at the heart of the documentary, but while the focus is firmly on Pat’s role within the queer community, the documentary goes well and beyond just Pat’s debatable LGBTQ+ status. The documentary looks at what Saturday Night Live was like in the 90s and how an environment like that created Pat. Julia Sweeney appears frequently to discuss the purpose of Pat and what the original sketches were like, including that the earliest sketches actually weren’t about Pat’s ambiguous gender but rather how annoying the character was. Furthermore, we discover that even then, Julia Sweeney created Pat solely as a recurring role for herself, since the show consistently prioritized its male cast.
All of that is fascinating, especially as the past year has given audiences rose-tinted reflections of SNL. It’s not necessarily critical of the show, but it is critical of the treatment of Pat, mostly given the culture of the time’s inability to properly address trans or nonbinary representation. We Are Pat, to its credit, features interviewees with widely varying interpretations of Pat. Some view them as a noble, if misguided, step to bring more awareness to non-conforming genders. Others view Pat as a punchline that resulted in trans and NBs being more uncomfortable with coming out about their own gender identity. There’s no right or wrong interpretation, and even Julia Sweeney and the director, Ro Haber, don’t really know how to reconcile the character’s legacy.
When We Are Pat has these frank discussions, it’s enticing. As a straight cis-white male, I know that I can never fully understand the impact Pat had/has on the LGBTQ+ community, but seeing a writer’s room of people ask basic questions like “what makes Pat Pat?” and “is Pat even funny?” is strangely compelling. The fact that no one can agree on a single answer says a lot about the complex legacy they have. I wish more interviewees had challenged the claims that Pat should be revived and become a culturally relevant figure again. They brushed aside most criticism of the idea, thus missing a chance to make their already thorough discussion even more profound.
For as much as I may have loved the discussions about Pat’s legacy, it’s the efforts by Haber to modernize Pat that feel a bit hit-or-miss. The end goal of these writer room discussions appears to be the creation of modern-day Pat sketches with a variety of trans and non-binary comedians… I think? It’s not exactly clear since, as we get closer to the end, a lot of behind-the-scenes footage shows these writers and comedians creating new Pat sketches that aren’t exactly funny. Humor is entirely subjective, but seeing the end result of this hour and 22-minute documentary being the presentation of several sketches that, admittedly, are more aware of the implications of Pat’s unknown gender, yet lack any punchy jokes, is deflating. I admire the goal to reclaim the character, but seeing jokes that don’t land as well as the polarizing ’90s sketches, it leaves the documentary on a weird final note.
Take that last bit with a grain of salt, though. Again, I know I am not the target audience for jokes aimed specifically at the LGBTQ+ community, but seeing a mock Weekend Update sketch featuring a Republican version of Pat just doesn’t hit. This doesn’t invalidate any of the thought-provoking discussions on gender, death of the author, creator consent, and the changing values of society, but it does end things on a bit of a weird coda.
Minor gripes aside, We Are Pat is a strong documentary that fits in perfectly with SNL’s 50th anniversary, even if it is an unofficial and indirect examination of the show. Pat’s a complex character to discuss 35 years after their creation, and trying to unpack the jokes revolving around their character, their place in society back then and today, as well as the desire to claim the character as part of a gender movement, is admirable. It may not end on the note that I would have preferred it to end on, but for others, I can assume that they’ll leave pretty satisfied with what they saw. Pat may never be seen by mainstream again, but at the very least, We Are Pat justifies their endurance as a cult icon.
