It started out as a complete joke; I wasn’t trying to make a statement about sexuality or anything, I was really trying to figure out how to make this character. To me, the most interest part of it was that Pat was so oblivious to how other people were reacting to Pat. I was basing it on a couple of people, but mainly an accountant I knew, who asked you to lunch and wouldn’t take no for an answer and was completely oblivious to how he was coming off. And that’s what was interesting to me. Then I added these jokes on that you can’t tell if it’s a man or a women. I wasn’t trying to make a statement about sex but once it became popular, the people’s reaction to Pat was really fascinating. I didn’t think it was that interesting that you didn’t know if Pat was a man or a woman; to me, so what? But people felt very uncomfortable not knowing. People would ask me to tell them but I didn’t have an answer, and they couldn’t stand that. Then I met this friend who asked if I’d do appearances as Pat, so I came to Chicago and I did the St. Patrick’s Day parade — and made a lot of money, too! Then I started being Pat and he would pitch me to mall openings. We still have some of these letters that said, We find it immoral to have a character that you can’t tell if it’s a man or a woman. There was this response from people who thought it was subversive and the truth is, it is kind of subversive but I only came to that as I experienced while being Pat. It wasn’t something I thought about before I did it…
Matt Lauer asked me to come on the Today show because he loves Pat. I hadn’t done Pat in 20 years. I feel like the trans community wouldn’t like it. The truth is, to me the joke is that Pat is not transgender — I think on the Wikipedia page it says Pat is transgender and I have to go on there and take that off (but I don’t know how to) — but identifies as a man or a woman but you just don’t know which. That’s the joke of Pat. It isn’t transgender, but I could see for obvious reasons why people would make that association and that it wouldn’t be cool to do that. You would have to go around and constantly explain that, no, I am not making fun of transgender people.”
— Julia Sweeney explaining the origin and impact of her most famous character in an interview with Salon
Watch an “It’s Pat” sketch below and offer your opinion in the comments section.
Steve Wyrick
I always took Pat as a statement about androgyny
Clark35
@Steve Wyrick: same here.
Joey Molina
Exactly Steve. There’s a huge difference between androgyny and transsexualism.
Ruth Dalto
Hey get real who cares!
lykeitiz
Yes……exactly!
I actually think her explanation makes perfect sense. When I would watch the segments, I never got the feeling that the character was trying to make a statement. I thought the statement was about everyone else around being frustrated at not knowing.
The fact that she says the character developed unintentionally makes perfect sense.
Kangol
Pat was an androgyne. That’s different from a trans person. Not sure why this isn’t obvious, but OK.
Pat’s androgyny DID unsettle fixed and rigid gender assumptions, though, just as trans and genderqueer people do. So that was a good thing.
The new SNL, while sometimes very funny, has few stock characters as interesting or disturbing as Pat (or some of the other oldies and goodies).
Joe Edwards
How could anybody be offended? You can be anything or anyone and still have thin skin and a chip on your shoulder. Get over it people, it was a funny skit and nothing more.