
Pride Cocktail Hour with Richard Lawson
From Tell Me About Your Father by Erin Hosier, Elizabeth Thompson & Matthew Phillp
June 12, 2026 · 1h 13m
About this episode
Matthew is joined by film and culture critic Richard Lawson for a conversation about queer coding in animation and recent works in film and television.
In our annual Pride episode, Matthew is joined by film and culture critic Richard Lawson for a living room conversation over cocktails. Starting with Richard's fresh-out-of-the-theater reaction to He-Man: Masters of the Universe and Matthew's just-finished viewing of Richard Gadd's HBO series Half Man and what they have in common, they move into queer coding in animation, Pedro Pascal's career calculus, the relentless nihilism of Half Man versus the false resolution of Masters , and what it means when a creator tears themselves open onscreen. Follow this podcast on Instagram here Follow Matt Phillp here / Follow Erin Hosier here / Follow Elizabeth Thompson here Get full access to Tell Me About Your Father at tellmeaboutyourfather.substack.com/subscribe Get full access to Tell Me About Your Father at tellmeaboutyourfather.substack.com/subscribe
People in this episode
Host: Matthew Phillp
Guest: Richard Lawson
Topics covered
- Pride
- queer coding
- animation
- film criticism
- nihilism
- creator expression
Keywords
- Pride
- Richard Lawson
- He-Man
- Half Man
- queer coding
- Pedro Pascal
- nihilism
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: HBO
Books & works: He-Man: Masters of the Universe, Half Man
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