Julia Sweeney is still coming to terms with the negative legacy of SNL's "It's Pat"

The New York Times

The androgynous character that Sweeney created and performed in more than a dozen times was one of Saturday Night Live's most popular sketches in the early 1990s. It was even turned into a failed 1994 movie. But in recent years, "It's Pat" has been widely denounced. Work in Progress star Abby McEnany, a lesbian who happens to resemble Sweeney's character, says she's been called "Pat" derisively. Transparent creator Jill Soloway, who is nonbinary and uses they/them pronouns, says of Pat: "What we saw happen on SNL was shame embodied and turned into an it — a thing, not a person. Sweeney says she's well aware of Pat's negative legacy. She even addressed it in her one-woman show, saying: “My God, what did I do? Was I the Al Jolson of androgyny?” Sweeney tells The New York Times: “As a person, of course I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings,” adding: "As an artist, I don’t want to never hurt anyone’s feelings...I didn’t do that character to make anyone feel bad. On the other hand, I created a character and then people happened to look like that character. I’m not responsible if they take it negatively, either. So that’s a complicated situation.”