this documentary reminded me a lot of one from last year, Chasing Chasing Amy, where a filmmaker tackled a problematic representation of LGBTQ culture and not only shared how it might have brought them some joy, but also how it is now permanently trapped in time. That phrase we so often use, “it was different back then”, or any comparable phrase to suggest that people in the past really didn’t know any better. In Chasing Chasing Amy, Kevin Smith participated, along with various cast members, to dissect its effect on lesbian culture, and how a cisgender straight white man might have had a different take on that experience. Kevin Smith wouldn’t make that film now, and I’d like to think the more progressive current slate of SNL performers wouldn’t do the Pat sketch again, but who knows.

This explores the character pat, the androgynous to “hilarious effect”, butt of the joke from the early 90’s Saturday Night Live days. Played by Julia Sweeney, initially made their debut in 1990, before eventually landing one of those SNL spinoff films that dramatically underperformed, and was critically abandoned. Years later, we have unearthed this bad idea to discuss how it spoke to people who now identify as non-binary, but didn’t have a word for that then, and unintentionally saw themselves in a problematic and denigrated character. pat is not a character to be celebrated, much like Smith’s representation of a lesbian who “turns straight’ at the end of chasing Amy to benefit his straight male lead. These are flukes of the 90’s, from people who truly should have known better. The 1980’s were really the last vestige for any kind of “it was the times” in terms of questionable representation coming out of Hollywood. By the 90’s, after the AIDS crisis, it can’t help but feel all a bit homophobic or transphobic depending on the gag. I did a rewatch of Ace Ventura: pet Detective last year, a film I hadn’t seen since I was a kid, and I knew that was not going to be a good rewatch.

but, when you are starved for representation, the idea that there is a character who is seemingly a mixture or balance of masculine and feminine qualities, despite the tone of their existence driving characters to suicide, is still possibly an individual experience these non-binary comics should explore. that’s what makes it’s Pat work, is that these people now in control of Pat are those who should have been in the room, and never are. It seems odd to say SNL doesn’t have a trans writer or cst member, and when they had a non-binary cast member, that was sadly short lived. this film not only puts a focus on Pat, but on how comedy created by and for non-binary and trans comics is just as funny, and just as important in 2025. My only hurdle here was that i did want the documentary to feel more like the non-binary community was at the wheel. it feels like with so many people in the world offended by people choosing their own pronouns, the more powerful story is through their eyes. Perhaps the inclusion of trans comics is also important, but at a certain point it seemed like the documentary was tilting away from the idea of feeling genderless, or having a lack of definition in choosing his or hers, and voicing a community that has a different and totally valid battle to be able to use their gender specific pronouns and live their lives.

I might have edited it to be more of a voice for those who just when they have found a way to positively define how they’ve felt their entire lives, are now facing systematic backlash, and stupid laws preventing people from identifying their pronouns to let people know who they authentically are. in every way, we haven’t really moved past Pat. Society still deeply fears the unknown, and finds it easier to villainize and demoralize those it does not understand, instead of letting those people just authentically be themselves. last time I checked, “death by pronoun” isn’t a thing. In every chance I’ve had to talk with a friend who lets me know their new pronouns, it has always been either that they don’t see themselves as either he or she, or that they feel like they are a near 50/50 mixture of both. LGBTQ representation is niche still, sadly, and within that we have trans representation, which has grown. What now needs to come along are voices for those who for years had no way to define themselves except to point to Pat and say, that’s me. And, what a shame for Pat to be the way you might use to describe yourself, as your friend looks up pat, only to find the sketch where the sheer existence of Pat drives Christopher Walken to kill himself.

It might not seem like I loved this, but I did. I just wanted it to skew even more non-binary than it does. those voices are here, but so rarely do we ever listen to them.

Final Grade: 88/100