Back to the OP: the character Bob Falfa in American Graffiti was supposed to sport a crewcut in order for him to stand out from the rest of the cast. Harrison Ford refused and adopted the cowboy hat instead.
Also, one of the many reasons watching Happy Days made me gag was seeing Potsie with hair over his ears. Wasn’t that supposed to be set in the late '50’s or early '60’s? I gather most people don’t remember what a stir the Beatles caused because their hair made them “look like girls,” even though it barely touched their ears.
Plus after Frank, Trapper, and the Col. left the show completly changed as to who the ‘bad’ guys were. All the characters chaged over the decade the show was on, even Klinger stopped wearing dresses.
I think the OP is refering to someone who has a case of HollywoodisUnAmericanitis.
There are lots of reasons why the person may not have the absoulte ‘proper’ haircut for a role. Maybe it’s a bad hairdresser. Maybe the director does not care that the hair isn’t perfectly historically correct. Maybe the producers want the stars to good and maybe they realize that when all the males are wearing the same clothes and have the same haircut that it’s hard to tell them apart.
Well, in the case of Harrison Ford, he didn’t want to cut his hair for such a small role. I believe his reasoning was that it would limit his movie prospects until it grew out again.
Heh. That makes it pretty ironic that when Tommy Lee Jones accepted his Best Supporting Actor Oscar (for a Harrison Ford film, natch), his head was shaved partially bald for a part (Cobb, which should have nabbed him a Best Actor Oscar, IMHO).
Do people not realize that hair (on average) grows at a rate of almost 1/2 inch per month? For an average guy, it might only take a month or two to grow out a close cut.
On a similar note, Fonzie wore flared Levis in the later seasons. That too was completely inaccurate with respect to the era.
Harrison was still a bit player in '73. According to the IMDb, American Graffiti was his first role in three years. He probably just wanted to keep his options open for anything that came along.