A New Documentary Wonders If ‘It’s Pat’ Is Problematic — And Invites Julia Sweeney to Join the Discussion

On Monday morning, I spoke over Zoom to Haber and Sweeney, who refers to the filmmaker affectionately as Ro. We talked about what Sweeney would do differently today with Pat — and why Haber decided not to include anti-trans comics like Dave Chappelle in We Are Pat. 

Rowan, this documentary was inspired by your love of the 1994 film It’s Pat, which you only watched initially because you were a big fan of the band Ween, who are featured in the movie. But you saw it as a kid — had your fondness for It’s Pat stayed with you as an adult?

Haber: I loved it when I was in my childhood and then I forgot about Pat for a really long time — Pat was just in the back of my mind marinating. And then I came to Pat about five, six years ago — I was out at this Sundance dinner and we’re talking about ‘90s stuff, and I was just like, “Oh my god, I want to remake It’s Pat.” I started recalling how Pat was funny to me — I knew there was something there. 

Once I started making the movie and I was telling people what I was doing, I had some mixed responses. Some people had seen Work in Progress — I started developing the film before that. Honestly, (the response) was never all-negative. Some people were like, “Oh my god, Pat was funny,” or “Why would you want to do that?” A lot of younger people just had no idea who Pat was.

Sweeney: That’s a big one, I would say, if you’re under 40. (Laughs)

Julia, do you find that younger generations don’t know a thing about Pat?

Sweeney: I would give speeches at high schools (as myself) — I would do it a handful of times, and I would be recognized. And then there was this moment when I came in — I said, “Hi, I’m Julia Sweeney” — and then the teacher said, “Just a minute, does anyone in this room know the Pat character?” And nobody did. That was a long time ago. (Laughs)

Lorne (Michaels) used to have this line that if you’re on SNL for the four years that somebody’s in high school, you will be famous to them for the rest of their lives. That’s a generation in his mind — the four years of high school. So I was like, “Oh, it’s over — nobody knows who I am now. I’m just an older lady that’s in show business.” 

I would meet people who were younger, like Ro, who (knew Pat). I just went to Maybe Happy Ending on Broadway, and I went backstage and talked to Darren Criss. It turns out he’s a huge Pat fan — and like you, Ro, he was a Ween fan!

Haber: Yes!

Sweeney: He watched the Pat movie because Ween was in it, became a Pat fan and realized there were a bunch of sketches on SNL. He kept wanting to talk about Pat. I feel like somebody liking Pat, especially if Ween is their gateway, those are the people I want to know.

Julia, when did you get your first inklings that there was a growing backlash against Pat?

Sweeney: So, I really dropped out of Hollywood for 10 years — I moved to a suburb of Chicago and was an at-home mom for 10 years. I didn’t know if I’d ever go back to show business. When I left, I was like, “See you later, Hollywood!” (Laughs) Over time, I did want to get back into the game, but I was really preoccupied with parenting.

I was really (first) aware (of the backlash) because (of) Joey Soloway talking about Pat. I was a little upset because I thought, “Oh, I hate that I ended up being famous for only one thing, and now that one thing seems like it wasn’t a good thing.” That bothered me more than anything. But I also found it interesting what Joey had to say about it — I disagreed in some ways, but I agreed in a lot of ways. 

I didn’t feel like I had to rehabilitate Pat or anything. It was kind of by accident that I did (Pat). I didn’t really have an agenda of saying something about nonbinary people. And because I’m just intellectually curious and I’m a person who observes the world, I had learned so much about gender that I realized I didn’t know about when I played Pat. It’s really interesting to me how I was so naive — (back then) I thought, “Well, is that even that funny if you don’t know if it’s a man or woman?” When I first did the sketch at the Groundlings, we just had one joke about that, and I thought that wasn’t even that interesting. But then I learned that it was interesting, and then I learned that it was loaded, and then I learned that it meant a lot, and then I learned that I was representing the character and it was kind of a creepy character — and I was saying the character was creepy. 

It took me a really long time to figure out the public response to it. I’m interested in all those things, so I wanted to talk about it.

But how defensive were you when you first heard those negative comments? That’s a pretty natural reaction, I imagine, to being criticized. 

Sweeney: Ro, you put it so well: How much weight do you give the intention and how much weight do you give the reception — or how people take it or what the end result is or if it hurts people? (If) it’s unintentional, who’s responsible for that? There is no answer to that. 

I felt defensive. By the way, (Soloway and I) still perform together — we’re friendly to each other, so I never thought of it as “Somebody’s trying to take me down.” I really took it as Joey thinking about those kinds of representations in the media and what they really meant to people who were grappling with those issues themselves. 

But also, of course, I have all these parts of me — one part of me was (angry) “It was a joke! I just came up with this character on the fucking fly!” (Laughs) When I came to SNL, I actually didn’t think that Pat would be a popular character. But I was also really interested in what (Soloway) had to say, like that Pat was on the spectrum — I started thinking, “One of the three people that I based it on probably was on the spectrum, but I didn’t know that when I met that person in 1982.” 

We Are Pat digs into the whole question of “problematic” comedy: What deserves to be labeled as such, and what are the risks of slapping the label on too many things? Rowan, now that you’ve made the documentary, where do you land on that ongoing debate?

Haber: Maybe what’s a bit underneath your question is “Where do we draw the line between what is a little edgelord-y and what is really very problematic?” A lot of the comics in the film are total edgelords. Robin Tran makes jokes about suicide — she makes jokes about the Vietnam War. Those are things out of her lived experience. Grace Freud makes very, very edgy jokes. Some people could find those jokes offensive. Comedy does push boundaries and can be offensive — the stakes are sometimes raised so high that that’s what makes it funny. 

But (some) things are really overtly homophobic, transphobic, racist, ableist. Some of the right wing does comedy about trans people, but the intention isn’t really to make people laugh. It’s more to make fun of trans people: “My pronouns are fuck/you.” I low-key think if a trans person made that joke maybe it would be funnier — if they’re just like, “I’m so sick of pronouns…,” that could be funny. But I think the intention when a right-wing person says that isn’t “I’m going to make this audience laugh” — it’s like, “Isn’t it stupid that we have to use pronouns for this group of people who is other?” Versus if a trans person made that joke, it’d be like, “Wow, we’ve really gone overboard with this pronoun thing for our group.” It’s taking the piss out of people in your own group, which I think is more allowed.

(What’s appropriate in comedy) is something that we’re always negotiating all the time. But I think it’s like, “What’s your relationship to the material and the people that you’re talking about? What is your perspective? Is the intention of it actually mean-spirited or not?” Sometimes, the intention doesn’t have to be mean-spirited, and it can still hurt people — that sometimes happens. What I hope people take from this film is that Julia is the case of someone who created this thing without a mean-spirited intention that did both delight and hurt people — and, then, when she was called up to talk about the ways in which it hurt people, she did that and had a repair process with some people in the community. That’s really cool. It’s a map for moving forward. 

I don’t want everything to be so self-serious that we can’t laugh. It’s a horrible time — we need to laugh. I really didn’t want the film to be like, “You can’t laugh at this.” I feel like the problem is stuff around trans people is often kind of squashed into we’re either fighting for our rights or it’s all about bathrooms — or we’re pissed off at someone because they misgendered us. I really just wanted to make the film be like, “These people are really funny” and have you fall in love with them. Let’s all be together in this and de-exceptionalize transness in that way.

Only when the film was over did I realize, “Oh, Dave Chappelle never comes up in the documentary.” I have to assume it was a pointed decision not to include him or any of his anti-trans jokes.

Haber: There was a moment where we did put a section about right-wing comedy in. He was in it, Ricky Gervais was in it, a couple people like that — but it just felt like it was taking away from the conversation. It felt like it was giving literal stagetime to people who already have such a massive stage. Interestingly enough, one of the comics, Pink Foxx, who’s in the film, is friends with Dave Chappelle, and we talked about that a little bit, but I thought it took the film in the wrong direction. 

The point is trying to talk about the history of trans comedy by looking in the margins and talking to people. The history of trans comedy doesn’t involve Dave Chappelle. (Laughs) Dave Chappelle is one person who exists who’s going to die someday. Trans people have existed for far longer, and I didn’t want to make him the centerpiece of the film. 

Sometimes with people who are overtly racist or transphobic or homophobic, there’s not really a good way to have a conversation with those people because they just believe what they’re going to believe. I want to have conversations with people who might not know what they think and are willing to engage. I don’t really want to have conversations with people who just blatantly are bigoted — I just don’t see the point in that.

Julia, for SNL50, there was a bit in which Tom Hanks introduced an “In Memoriam” segment — a tongue-in-cheek farewell to the show’s most offensive bits and characters. I was surprised Pat wasn’t in there. Did you ask the show not to include Pat?

Sweeney: I have this weird relationship with SNL. I left early before my contract was up — Lorne was unhappy about it. I had done an interview with New York magazine where they were saying how sexist it was at SNL, which was true. I had said some harsh things (in the interview) that was, of course, tempered by other things, but then they ended up putting a lot of stuff in that I didn’t say. I mean, this reporter really fucked me over — I was now hated (at SNL) for leaving and having said these things. It was so complicated because I wanted to say, “Well, I did say this, but I didn’t say that.” 

And so, I was never included in anything. I was asked to the reunions, but just to be an audience member — there’s a whole hierarchy of who gets a plane ticket and who just gets an invitation. For the 30th, 40th, 50th, I was just a person in the audience, and I knew that I wouldn’t be asked to be part of it or even mentioned in it. But at the same time, Lorne and I email each other about once a year — friendly email. (Laughs) So there’s this other thing happening. 

I went to the 50th and I was sitting there watching it, having all kinds of thoughts about the show and going over my whole life and why I was even there. And then they started that (segment) — I didn’t know anything about them doing that. I thought, “Do I want Pat to be in it? At least I’d be mentioned. Or do I not want Pat to be in it? Because then the only reason I’m mentioned is as a canceled character.” So I was watching it going, “I guess I don’t want it to be in there?”

Afterwards, I saw Tom Hanks, and he said, “Oh, how did you feel about Pat being in the canceled characters?” And I said, “But Pat wasn’t.” And he said, “Oh, it was in dress rehearsal.” I would love to know how it got cut between dress and air and who it was that did it.

When I was a kid watching the Pat sketches, I thought the joke was at the expense of all the uptight people around Pat who were flummoxed by Pat’s gender. But I also related to the idea of not feeling like I “fit” in terms of certain gender expectations as a man. In We Are Pat, Julia mentions how she was partly inspired by her mom’s rigid expectations for how she “should” behave and dress as a woman.  

Haber: Everybody is constrained by whatever gender box they feel like they have to fit in. Men are expected to do certain masculine things that not all men want to do or conform to — the same with women — and it changes through time. When Julia talked about her upbringing and her mom’s expectations for her, that was something that I super-related to — not in relation to my family, but in relation to what the world expects you to be in terms of gender. And the comics really related, too — it’s just that little pain point of your parents or whoever wanting you to be this one thing. When you’re not that, what does that say about you? What are you failing at? It makes you feel like you’re not “right” in some capacity. And so I think that that was something that came up as we went through the process. It was a little bit of a revelation when I heard that. 

Sweeney: The whole Pat thing was one accident after another — how it came together, there was really not a lot of forethought or deep thinking. But once I was doing it, there was a freedom from having to perform femininity. I was like, “Oh god, I didn’t realize how much I had to behave a certain way and look a certain way.” 

I am still amazed. As an older woman, I look at my husband, who just gets up and goes outside to the store. But I go, “Oh, my eyebrow!” — I have really light eyebrows, so I have to draw them. I was like, “Why am I even doing that? When do I get to not have to put on eyebrow makeup to go to the fucking store?” I still am trying to find what is the right thing for me — that’s still a big part of it. I feel like, “Okay, don’t you get a time in your life where you just don’t have to think about gender anymore? I’m not raising a kid anymore. I’m not trying to attract somebody anymore. So why do I goddamn have to do this stuff that makes me a girl or makes me look cute at the party?” 

I just hate it, even though I notice other people looking good, according to what I think — I’m part of it! And as an actress, it’s always been interesting how people react to how you look or how much you’re trying to look a certain way. Living in Hollywood, there’s one person — I won’t name her — we were at the Groundlings, and she was auditioning and auditioning and wasn’t getting anywhere. She’s like, “Fuck it, I’m dying my hair blonde and I’m getting a boob job.” And she became a huge star! (Laughs) I was like, “Okay, so what was the lesson from that?” My heart goes out, especially to women, because they’re expected to be so much more glittered up — even though men have their own shit they have to do, too. 

Being Pat really was a big relief. I had another character, Mea Culpa, she didn’t have makeup on and she was sort of homely and just shy and apologizing all the time — I loved playing that. I did a pilot, they made me dye my hair blonde — I had longer hair and I looked too much like the main character, so they dyed it platinum blonde. When I walked out of the salon onto the street, the way people reacted to me was so different. It was just shocking what dyed platinum blonde big hair looked like to people — what it presented to people. 

We Are Pat will attract viewers who remember Pat, but it also does a great job of spotlighting a bunch of trans comics. Rowan, it’s almost as if Pat is your way of getting people in the door before turning your focus to comedians who maybe aren’t receiving enough attention. 

Haber: In the beginning, we weren’t planning on redoing the Pat sketches. I knew that I was going to interview trans comics — I wanted to hear what they had to say about Pat — but during the interviews, the comics would pitch me ideas. They’d be like, “I’d redo Pat, I’d do this.” I was like, “Wait a second, maybe let’s actually have you guys try to redo Pat.” And then as I was scouting comics to have in the writers’ room, I saw their stand-up, and I was like, “Okay, well, we also have to put their stand-up in here.” I could do a whole ‘nother film that’s on trans comedy — they’re really funny and there’s a whole ‘nother film to be had there. 

What happens with trans films — or films that have trans content — is people are just like, “Well, that’s a ‘trans film.’ Gay people are going to like that — nobody else is going to like it. It’s just niche.” I really didn’t want that for this film — I wanted it to be something that people would watch and relate to. We might not be as broad as Will & Harper, which I love and think is a great film — Will & Harper reaches (across) the country in a really specific way. But I do think that our film also can reach a really broad audience of people who like comedy, who like SNL, who like ‘90s nostalgia — and queer and trans people. 

My dream is that a lot of people get to see it who aren’t queer or trans, because it does show queer and trans people being funny, being (irreverent). When Grace and April are like, “Our comedy asks the question: What if two trans women were fucking idiots”? I want people to see that. (laughs)

Didactic humor isn’t funny — you might as well just give a speech. Actually, one of our comics, Janaya Future Khan, came from the activist world and was a huge part of Black Lives Matter before they started doing comedy. They were like, “People are only going to listen so much when you’re speaking as an activist, but comedy actually gets to people in a different way.” Comedy can get to people and disarm you a bit.

Julia, in the documentary you get to watch these new sketches that the trans comics come up with for Pat. But when’s the last time you performed as Pat? And if you did it again, how would you play Pat differently?

Sweeney: When I say I do think about doing it over again, it doesn’t mean I will or that it’s a good idea — or that anyone wants me to. (Laughs) But when I see it just as an “artist,” I can’t help but think of ideas. “What’s Pat now? What’s Pat and Chris’ (Dave Foley’s character from the movie) marriage like now? What have they gone through together? What has Pat learned about Pat?” 

I don’t remember the last time I played Pat. I think it was at the Groundlings — I think I did the first very sketch again for a benefit. I remember thinking, “This isn’t that funny anymore.” (Laughs) The audience is more sophisticated than it was. I didn’t even understand that it was a shocking thing to do a character where you didn’t know if it was a man or woman when I came up with the character in (the late 1980s). That isn’t the audience now — the audience now has a completely different view of it. There might be a nostalgic view — like, “Oh, remember this character?” But it’s not like, “What?!? We can’t tell if it’s a man or a woman! I can’t stand it!!” That element of the audience is gone. I just remember feeling “Yeah, I probably shouldn’t do that again.” Also, maybe it was me not remembering how to play it. 

What I wish — and I don’t mean this in a sad, terrible way. I mean it in the way that we all wish we could go back to be 20 and do a hundred things differently. I wish I had bagged (Pat’s) hand stuff and the drooling — just get rid of that. The guy (I based Pat on) was like that — who probably was autistic, when I think about it. He’s passed away now, by the way — he never knew that I was doing him, and it doesn’t look anything like him in any way. It was the spitting, the drooling, the hands I got from him. But I wish I had had the sense and the insight to dump all that and just be Pat more like Pat is in the movie. There is that stuff in the movie, but it’s at the beginning and then I drop it, and I wish I’d just dropped it. 

I think of that one (Pat) sketch where Phil Hartman says (to the audience), “Can you imagine Pat calling someone creepy?” I really wish I had not done that. That’s the part that makes me think I can’t watch the movie again — I don’t like seeing myself do these things that are gross and creepy. On the other hand, I’m in love with Pat and Chris. 

Haber: Yeah, Pat and Chris are great!

Sweeney: I was telling Ro that I became obsessed with this gay couple — two women who are sheep-shearers and they’ve been together for a hundred years and they have videos on YouTube. I had a day where I watched 10 hours of sheep-shearing — I couldn’t stop. And then I kept thinking about Pat and Chris: What if they were sheep-shearers? (Laughs) Stuff like that could be funny. I do think of that.