The "You know what?" thread

[LittleJerry92]

Can I just say how much I love them Southener's with the grubby teeth and sweaty overalls, y'all?

 

[D'Snowth]

Every once in a while, there will be a country song that I genuinely enjoy . . . "Wanna Talk About Me" by Toby Keith, "Online" by Brad Paisley, "Smile" by Uncle Kracker, "I'll Wait for You" by Joe Nichols, "Don't Laugh at Me" by Mark Wills, Alan Jackson's version of "Have a Holly Jolly Christmas" . . . and that's pretty much it.

 

[LittleJerry92]

Oooh, I love Smile.

I honestly prefer listening to that song more when I'm just not in the best mood.

 

[D'Snowth]

It is an uplifting song, isn't it?

 

[LittleJerry92]

I have actually used that song once after a (slightly) heated day with a friend.

It really helped to be honest. It was a really crummy day for me.

 

[LittleJerry92]

Okay, oddly enough, a friend from high school just posted a chicken and waffles photo after our talk of it.

 

[Pig'sSaysAdios]

Okay, oddly enough, a friend from high school just posted a chicken and waffles photo after our talk of it.

Who knows, maybe they secretly lurk around Muppet fan sites. We are extremely popular, you know.

 

[LittleJerry92]

 

[Pig'sSaysAdios]

Aaand, they just clicked off.

 

[minor muppetz]

For the last few years, I've been seeing a number of reviews for the SNL movie It's Pat, and some things at TV Tropes about the character, saying that the movie and concept of the character can be a little uncomfortible now in an age where transgendered people are more common and accepted by society, and people remark that the characters wondering what gender Pat is is either male or female and not considering maybe Pat's transgendered (though I think it has been made clear that Pat is either a man or woman).

But if that was the case, couldn't people just be wondering what gender Pat currently identifies with, even if he wasn't always?

I've also seem some reviews that remark that the movie could be offensive to androgynous people. That seems odd. I don't think people choose to be androgynous, Pat doesn't realize that nobody knows Pat's gender, and if you can't tell what gender a person is, wouldn't you want to know and be sure not to mistakenly call them, say, ma'am or sir? It would probably be offensive if they did know the characters gender and rudely teased them for not looking like their gender.

Something else I find interesting about It's Pat. In the last year, I've seen some people say, in video reviews of the film and on the TV Tropes YMMV page, that while Pat looks androgynous Chris looks more like a trans-gendered person than someone whose gender is hard to determine. And yet I feel Chris' look is more ambiguous than Pat - I always thought Pat looked more like a boy.

In fact, I first heard of the Pat character when I first saw a promo for the movie, I think I ignored/overlooked all scenes that show people clearly wanting to know what Pat is. At the time, I associated Pat as a boys name, I think I first heard of a woman who went by Pat shortly later and thought it was weird (at the time I was starting to notice that more names I associated as gender-speciffic were actually equally common with both genders, even if many were spelled differently depending on gender).

It wasn't until a few years later when my mom was talking about the sketches that I learned the premise was that nobody could tell what Pat was, and that Pat had a friend named Chris whose gender was also ambiguous (and when I first heard of that, I didn't realize that the two were a couple). It's more common for me to know or know of women going by Pat or Chris than when I was a kid/teenager, but back then I only associated those names with males. I thought most women named Patricia would shorten it to Patty (though I don't think that is as common anymore) or Trisha, while women named Christina or Christen would shorten it to Christy or Chrissy (okay, I think that's less common than other shortenings of Christopher or Christina, but at the time I knew of more uses of Chrissy than women who went by Chris).

And when I first heard about what the character was all about, I didn't really think about why people didn't just ask. Actually, I think I assumed people in the sketches did ask. When I first watched part of the movie, I asked my parents why people didn't just directly ask and was told that it's considered rude to ask somebody what their gender was, which was a surprise to me.

One thing about the ending: When Pat ends up without pants on stage at a Ween concert, the whole crowd cheers. At first I thought it was because they all now know what Pat is, but I wonder how many of them had encountered Pat before and wondered. If I was at a show and saw somebody I'd never seen before without their pants, and therefore hadn't wondered about their gender, I don't think I'd be cheering like that. Then again, I now realize that Pat would have been seen by a national audience when a video recording of the character was shown on a home video show and then Pat appeared in a Ween music video, so maybe the crowd saw Pat in one of those (most likely the Ween video, if only one of them) and had been wondering.

There are also some missed opportunities that could have been funny. In the movie, when Pat and Chris meet, it's love at first sight. Neither of them seems to have a problem determining if the other one is the gender they prefer (maybe the two are bi?). It could have been funny if they spent time together attracted to each other but wondering what the other one is (similar to Kyle becoming attracted to Pat but going mad trying to figure it out). At one point Chris calls in Pat's talk show about their situation, without specifically saying that it's that Chris or that Chris is talking about that Pat while also not being too subtle, and Pat never picks up on it - it would have been funny if, following the conversation, Pat wondered out loud what gender the caller was. And the last Pat sketch begins with Pat getting amnesia when ending up on an island, Pat soon regains memory but it would have been funny to have an amnesiac Pat wonder about the characters gender (though of course Pat could just easily check, but then again, most of the Pat sketches I've seen seem to be short compared to other SNL sketches, not counting the commercials or cold opens).