Anybody remember those SNL skits where a character named Pat was not clearly male or female, and the whole joke was how everyone was just confused about how to address them but still ended up being polite and friendly? I don't understand how our culture got from there to people demanding proof of gender from strangers.
this post was submitted on 08 May 2025
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Fascism.
i love movies like that, too, but it definitely wasn't popular when it was released. and pat was always the butt of the joke. i also have to check my "but we cured racism in the 90s" indoctrination sometimes. fresh prince made me think things were a lot better than they really were back then.
Yeah, I was a kid when SNL was still airing those skits and they didn’t feel enlightened to me at all. Like, this is the same show that “joked” that Brandon Teena (who was already known to be murdered at that point) deserved to die for reporting his rape. Like, not as a shocking thing a heel would say, just a crass joke. It was hilarious to people then, that’s the environment It’s Pat is in.
The 90s were fucked up, y’all.
It's Pat, the movie, was a notorious commercial bomb, and sold basically no tickets.
It was made, though, because the recurring SNL sketch was popular enough to attract the investment.
The second statement is true, and yet hyperbolic. That was the same time that they made the Coneheads movie, another bomb about SNL characters that had not been on screen in like 20 years. And like five other bombs on the same model.
Blues Brothers and Wayne's World were successful enough that people forget that they originated as SNL sketches. And, because they were the first, they kept on trying.
The category as a whole isn't exactly very impressive, as movies.
But the originating sketches that developed the characters were...fine.
fresh prince made me think things were a lot better than they really were back then.
Fresh Prince had a lot of references to the fact that racism was alive and well in the 90s. Many of those episodes also focus around the theme that even though the Banks' were wealthy, it still didn't stop them from being discriminated against, and even caused discrimination from other black people.
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There's actually a documentary coming out soon that analyzes Pat through a 2025 lens. I'm excited to see it.
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My wife and I went to what we thought was a suuuuper leftist bar in Berlin; Marxist stuff all over the walls, anti-Nazi stuff, etc., but the bartender stopped my wife from entering the restroom, accusing them of not being a cis woman. Sullied the whole goddamn vibe of the place.
TERFs are such awkward bigots in that they have no endgame other than to see your fuckin’ genitals. No safety, no greater good, just do you have a dick or not?
now ma'am, I believe that you were born a biological woman like you're saying, but its company policy that I gotta see that pussy
That’s sexual assault, no?
Yes
You don't get it, its to protect the women! /s
Wait wait wait... So a man barges into a women's bathroom to pull out a woman just to make sure there are no men in there
My mind is stuck in an endless logic loop
So, why is it OK for guard man to go inside if there might be a man in there? Does this not double the number of men in the bathroom? I don't understand bigot logic. The women joining in like that is appalling.
"When I do it it's Morally Right™" Is their basic justification.
Hopefully TERFs will learn at some point that discrimination against trans women also harms cis women and empowers the patriarch.
TERFs love the patriarchy, they aren't feminist at all.
Are ya feeling safer, fellow women?
This is bad. But what really struck me was that a hotel had a guard? Do you have guards EVERYWHERE?
Reminded me of a comment a colleague made during a hotel stay in the US, "they got six people greeting me as I enter the lobby but no one to fix my shower".
In the US? Only if there's money.
Guards are only to protect assets not people. When I used to Metro in the Pentagon you would see four or five armed guards with m4s and body armor protecting the carts of the money for the Metro machines. They could give two shits about anyone else.
I rode some light rail trains in Mexico. The guards were putting money on boxes and I though it was a thought provoking photo. So I took the shot. Apparently they thought so too. They followed me and asked me to removed the photo because it was my first offense. Fuck that I've never been back in 35 years.
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Tucson here: armed and unarmed guards are really common at low-class-linked businesses like thrift stores, Fry’s supermarkets, Walmart, Dollar stores, Walgreens/CVS. God forbid someone steal food or pharmacy items like shavers (shaver cartridges here are crazy expensive if you get name brand). Walgreens/CVS also has a tendency to lock the shelves behind plexiglass so you have to ask for help to buy more expensive items.
In some cases, these kind of stores are targeted specifically. There are shopping centers with higher end restaurants that coexist with super high theft locations literally within walking distance.
TLDR: it’s mostly to abate crimes of poverty
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Wait wait
They want the woman to go to the men's room???
😵💫
Or... Or, is it that maybe gender is like maybe a lil bit gray, and the officer made a mistake? 🧐
I hope she sues them. It’s the only way these shitty companies will learn.
I wish she maced him.
Just start denying any male who don't look like a bodybuilder in the mens room pretty sure then stuff would get figured out.
The worst part is they suspended him versus firing his creepy ass.
Hope nobody lets him take a crap in peace ever again. Keep barging in on him and demanding he show id.
Why do people care so much? Idgaf who uses which bathroom. Do people have men and women's bathrooms in their own homes?
Let’s just go to all gender bathrooms with highly private stalls like every other civilized country
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You don't have bathrooms in your room in a hotel?
I realize now that I haven't been in a hotel many time in my life
There are also public restrooms.
Hotels also tend to have banquet rooms, which means they have public restrooms for banquet attendees.
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