Harrison Ford’s knowledge of Gen Z slang is about as current as the Millennium Falcon’s last oil change. When quizzed, the legendary actor got flustered, admitting, “I’m old.”
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During a May 2 appearance on SiriusXM’s The Morning Mashup, the 83-year-old actor was joined by his Shrinking costars Christa Miller, Jason Segel, and Sherry Cola. Things got a little lost in translation when Cola, 36, explained why she sometimes “raw-dogs a flight.”
“I will just — here’s the thing. We’re doing the most all the time, right? So, sometimes silence and solitude is necessary. Just like sitting on a plane watching nothing, doing nothing, just staring blankly — it’s called raw-dogging a flight,” Cola detailed.
“I microdose in raw-dogging a flight,” she added. “Get it where you find it, find it where you can.”
“That’s not what raw-dog means,” Ford, who’d been quietly listening, suddenly blurted out.
To my fellow olds, let’s break this down. The kids have co-opted “raw-dogging” to mean doing something unpleasant without any distractions. For example, “raw-dogging a flight” means staring into the abyss of the seat-back pocket for hours without headphones, a book, or even a Xanax. However, as Harrison Ford was quick to point out, the term originally meant… well, let’s just say it’s why you have grandkids now.
When the host pushed him for the term’s actual definition, which his costars called “filthy”, the Fugitive star said his castmates were “a little late” in explaining the alternate meaning to him.
“I really didn’t, well, why would I run across something that — I’m over this part of anybody’s life,” Ford added. “I have five children. People — I never — what does this mean? Why do you let me do this? And then you make fun of me. It’s because I’m old.”
“You’re married,” Ford’s Shrinking co-star Christa Miller insisted. “You don’t have to worry about that.”
Why Harrison Ford’s Confusion Over the Gen Z Slang May Sound Familiar…
Of course, for fans of Shrinking, Ford’s confusion might feel a bit like déjà vu. In a scene from the hit Apple TV show, his character, Dr. Paul Rhoades, also misuses the term, believing “raw-dogging” simply means “to talk to somebody that doesn’t want to talk to you.”
Art, it seems, imitates life… or maybe it’s the other way around.