What Harrison Ford Character Most Likely Would Have Worn an Earring?

According to Karen S. Schneider’s profile of him for People Magazine in 1997, Harrison Ford got his earring, the one you always see when he comes down from his Jackson Hole throne room to announce Best Picture, or something, at the Oscars, when he was having lunch with the late 60 Minutes correspondent Ed Bradley and Jimmy Buffett. (Jonathan, bring me my green light!) “We all had the same phones and watches,” Ford recalled for Schneider. “But I realized I didn’t have an earring like they did.” Though I’m a little disappointed this wasn’t a drunken dare by Spielberg, it does turn out Ford got his ear pierced at a Claire’s, which is where I got my ear pierced when I was 18, which means me and Han Solo, we’re like this. But I digress. Schneider pegged this as a “recent” lunch, meaning Ford’s ear would have been pierced in 1997, two years before the release of “Random Hearts”, which was featured on the “This Had Oscar Buzz” podcast in July of last year, hosted by Joe Reid and Chris Feil, which my friend Jaime recommended. And it was Reid who observed that “Random Hearts” had an odd fixation with Ford’s new earring, seemingly to favor that side of Ford’s face in frames, kind of like Claudette Colbert demanding to always have the camera favor the left side of her face, almost as if it was in the Gruffmaster’s contract. Reid, though, thought this particular Ford character, a cop, would have been less likely to wear an earring than, say, his character in Ford’s forgotten 1997 rom com “Six Days Seven Nights.” STOP THE TAPE.

Would his character in “Six Days, Seven Nights” – Quinn Harris, a charter pilot on a South Pacific island – be more likely to ear an earring than his character in “Random Hearts”, Police Sgt. Dutch Van Den Broeck? Quinn Harris might lead a life of leisure, but as his dismissiveness of the fashion magazine edited by Anne Heche’s character goes to show, he’s got a lotta crusty conservative in him too. In fact, Dutch Van Den Broeck is married to a fashion editor. Isn’t it likely a character married to fashion editor would want to accessorize his earlobe? Moreover, what Ford character would be most likely to sport an earring?

What Harrison Ford Character Most Likely Would Have Worn an Earring?

Han Solo is the obvious starting point here, not least because as a spice smuggler, he’s literally a pirate. But, I can’t seem to find any historical texts on Corellian fashion and so we can neither confirm nor deny whether pirates from Corellia wore earrings. Maybe they just wore vests?

Indiana Jones is a no go. You think they would’ve let him into the University of Chicago with an earring? In the 20s?

Jack Ryan? [Falls on the floor laughing.] I would have paid quasi-good money to see Tom Clancy’s reaction if they’d given Jack Ryan an earring, though.

That can’t possibly be Dr. Richard Kimble. Dr. Richard Kimble doesn’t have an earring.

Dr. Richard Kimble, I suppose, might have gotten his ear pierced along with his dyed hair and newly shaved face to try and throw the authorities off the scent. Then again, he might have stuck out even more.

One day we’ll have a male President who sports an earring rather than a performative flag pin, but President James Marshall of “Air Force One” is not that Commander-in-Chief.

I can’t remember and don’t have the desire to do the research, but did Ford’s Police Sgt. Tom O’Meara in “The Devil’s Own” let Julia Stiles, playing his daughter, have pierced ears?

Mike Pomery, news anchor in “Morning Glory”, has famous friends, like Ford, and is seen in the movie hanging out with them. But. Morley Safer and Chris Matthews and Bob Schieffer are not exactly Ed Bradley and the Parrothead-in-Chief.

Bob Falfa was more likely to beat up a guy wearing an earring than sport one himself.

Now Martin Stett, of “The Conversation”, he’s an interesting possibility. After all, as has ben noted many times, Ford chose to play character as gay, though coded gay, because in 1974 the delicate minds of the moviegoing public would have melted had he just been gay. And because he was forced to do it on the sly, that means he could not have worn an earring.

Allie Fox of “The Mosquito Coast” went against the grain, certainly, but not where jewelry was concerned.

When it comes to Rick Deckard, I think the question is, if we wonder whether Androids dream of electric sheep, do we then wonder if androids get their ears pierced? Because isn't the question whether Rick Deckard is a replicant? Whether or not he is, I kind of see the Deckard of “Blade Runner 2049” having pierced his ear, himself, probably badly.

He’s a villain, of course, in “What Lies Beneath” but it's not his villainous nature that makes me think he’d get his ear pierced; it's that he’s a professor at small Vermont college.

And yet. While I like “Blade Runner 2049” and “What Lies Beneath”, the only answer to the question What Harrison Ford Character Most Likely Would Have Worn an Earring is Jack Trainer in “Working Girl.” You’re telling me that after doing shots of tequila, that if Tess had told Jack they should go get his ear pierced, he wouldn’t have done it?