We Are Pat

Ooooo...

Let's do this.

Wow, okay. So, what?

Should I put the padding first?

-Yeah. -Okay.

Did you buy this?

-No, this is a rental. -Oh, this is a rental?

-Just like a fat suit rental? -Yeah.

I'm so glad you're putting that on.

-Me too. -(laughter)

This is really giving you the shape.

It's like Pat's shape is a refrigerator's shape.

- Transforming. -Can you loosen this up?

Really?

I think 'cause they're referring

to Julia Sweeney's gender, maybe?

What has she said about this?

Didn't she create him?

Yeah, and she maintains that Pat is not

like trans or gender non-conforming or anything.

Pat is just Pat.

And that Pat knows what gender Pat is

and that it's a binary gender.

That's weird.

Pat is queer.

For sure.

Because even if, like, they were binary

one way or the other,

there's something inherently queer about this.

Hello.

My goodness, how peculiar.

I think if I had told my ten-year-old self

that 30 years later

I'd be making a movie about Pat

I wouldn't have believed it.

-(crashing noise) -Whoa!

Ahhh!

-So sorry. -(laughing)

That's really good.

But well, here I am.

Surrounded by Pats.

And... action.

My obsession with Pat began in the early 90s on SNL.

I'm Pat.

Pat was nerdy, chunky, wore a Western shirt

and was indecipherable as a man or a woman.

Pat, did you hear about our Halloween party?

Oh yeah, the guys are bringing liquor

and the women will be bringing hors d'oeuvres.

So you'll be bringing...?

Pepto-Bismol!

And everyone was always trying

to find out Pat's gender.

That was the sketch.

The whole sketch.

And it lasted for over four years on Saturday Night Live

and through one major motion picture.

A draft of which was even written by Quentin Tarantino.

My middle school friend and I used to watch

"It's Pat: The Movie" over and over and over again.

It was fucking hilarious.

I love to stroke your pussy, Pat.

I know. Muffy likes it too.

My favorite part was when someone asked Pat

if they had a banana in their pocket.

...banana in your pocket, or are you just happy

to see me?

To which they replied,

No, it's a banana

If you're hungry, get your own.

This is my snack.

Although everyone was obsessed

with uncovering Pat's true secret,

Pat was supremely unbothered.

-Howdy, Tippy. -Oh. Oh Pat, what do you want?

Well, I just thought I'd stop by

and pick up a few personal items.

Oh, no, no, no. Please, remember?

No, I don't want to know about your sex life, okay?

When the film flopped,

Pat was left to rot in the annals of history.

But not for me.

Pat lingered

somewhere in the back of my mind, dormant.

Until 20 years and a gender journey later

when I was out one night with friends.

Okay, not me.

One of those times when you're up so late

that you're almost delirious.

We were joking about bad 90s movies

that should never be remade

when I blurted out that I wanted to remake It's Pat.

I hadn't thought about Pat in two decades.

But here they were.

I went home and re-watched It's Pat: The Movie.

I still laughed my ass off.

But this time I saw something totally different.

I saw me.

There comes a time in everyone's life

when he or she must ask themselves

some very important questions.

Who am I?

What am I?

I was in high school

and I looked exactly the same as I do now

but I had cheekbones.

And I remember seeing it

and it was strangely like looking in a mirror.

It was like, you know, "Oh, I'm like that."

Is it a he or a she?

Is it a ma'am or a sir?

And people always called me that,

you know, ma'am, sir, everything all the time.

You know, I kind of look like Pat.

I remember seeing Pat in the early 90s

on Saturday Night Live

and their presence kind of making me uncomfortable

because people would call me Pat.

My gender was ill-defined and not clear.

The thing that I liked about Pat

was their complete refusal of all of it.

Price chart is right over there.

Prices for the haircuts.

Alright, here's a 20.

It was just, kind of like, "Cool."

Pat is just effortlessly very positive

and just like, "I don't know, like, I fuck."

-Age? -30.

-Height? -5'8.

Sex?

Yes, please. (laughs)

I remember my parents always watching SNL

and I saw Pat and I was like, "Did I see myself?"

And I didn't know...

anything about like gender, queer.

Like, I had short hair and I was funny.

I was like, "So is that person."

So I just love-- I love Pat.

Pat rips.

Pat came on to Saturday Night Live

about the same time I started to inquire

about my own gender identity.

And I guess I remember watching

Saturday Night Live with my family one Saturday night

and seeing it.

I remember sitting on the coffee table

like two feet away from the screen.

And at the time probably not really knowing why

but knowing that there was something there for me.

No formalities here. Just call me Pat.

I related to the fact that Pat felt confident

in being like non-binary.

And at the time I guess I didn't really think

that was an option, but I saw it in Pat.

Pat was way ahead of their time.

Because in a way Pat was really prescient

about these conversations we were gonna be having

around gender and gender expression.

The more recent conversations around non-binary identity,

the discourse around they/them pronouns,

has sort of reanimated Pat from the grave.

Non-binary is really interesting

because it's a term that is so incredibly new

and yet has enjoyed a level of uptake,

like official institutional uptake

and just cultural clout probably unlike

any other gendered term we've seen in the modern era.

What's interesting to me about being non-binary

and about the definition of non-binariness is like

it's saying you're not these two things.

It's not really definable, but only by what it isn't.

It's interesting thinking of Pat in those ways.

I love the like non-binariness of Pat.

But in my terms, you know, Pat's a little trans masc

but also every like Midwestern grandma looks like Pat.

Part of what might make Pat

transgender in a 1990s sense

was that it was very much about being misread socially.

It's really hard for me not to--

To see Pat as like not a trans--

Like, what would they be, then?

A really butch, dyke lesbian?

I don't get it.

I don't want to know Pat's gender.

I don't want to speculate on Pat's gender.

I just wanted them to have a better outfit.

Day 124 on the island.

Oooh!

What was that?

Ooooh!