History Main / EarPiercingPlot

Sometimes her parents aren't the obstacle, though; it's actually Alice herself who's too scared to go through with it. She really wants to look grown-up, but she's terrified of having studs shot into her ears with a device that looks like a staple gun. Luckily, she has supportive friends/parents/siblings who promise to go with her to the store and be there with her as she gets her ears pierced. And when it's all finished, she'll have beautiful earrings and be one step closer to being grown up.

* ''Series/TheBigBangTheory'': In "[[TheBigBangTheoryS10E12TheHolidaySummation The Holiday Summation]]", Sheldon gets into an argument with his mother, and so he goes out and gets an ear piercing. He then screams in pain, and decides to get it removed.

* ''Series/TheBigBangTheory'': In "The Holiday Summation", Sheldon gets into an argument with his mother, and so he goes out and gets an ear piercing. He then screams in pain, and decides to get it removed.

Sub-trope of RiteOfPassage. Related to FashionHurts, AfraidOfNeedles, FaceYourFears, and ForbiddenFruit. Likely to overlap with DidntThinkThisThrough if Alice doesn't consider that she won't be able to hide her newly pierced ears from her disapproving parents forever.

After that, many wacky shenanigans ensue trying to hide her newly pierced ears from her parents with hats, scarves, silly hairstyles, etc. until they inevitably discover what she did. Or the piercing gets infected, forcing her to come clean to her parents on her own. Either way, she's almost certainly going to be [[YouAreGrounded grounded for life]] and/or forced to sit through a long, boring lecture about safety and responsibility.

* ''ComicBook/SmileRainaTelgemeier'': Raina desperately wants to get her ears pierced, and even gets a few pairs of earrings for her 12th birthday, but her mother is hesitant to get it done. She cites that it was because she got an infection when she had hers pierced, to which Raina then retorts that it was because she "did it with a sewing needle and an ice cube." Eventually, her mother relents and lets her get her ears pierced.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'': In the B-plot of "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS9E19SimpsonTide Simpson Tide]]", Milhouse gets an earring, which makes him popular with his classmates. A jealous Bart decides to get his ear pierced against Homer's wishes (at a piercing store that quickly becomes one of many Starbucks at the Springfield Mall). When Homer finds out, he confiscates Bart's earring. Near the end of the episode, when a naval submarine Homer and his friends are on is being flooded due to a pin-sized hole in the hull, [[ChekhovsGag Homer uses Bart's earring to plug up the hole]], saving everyone onboard the sub.

* In ''WesternAnimation/{{Daria}}''. Daria is painfully keen to be seen as something more than the best friend of Trent's little sister. Seeing an older girl who hangs out with Trent has piercings, Daria, encouraged by her best friend Jane, goes to a tattoo parlour for a belly-button piercing - and backs out at the last minute. She opts for a clip-on pretend item that she attaches to her navel. Meanwhile, her little sister Quinn rats her out to her parents, who are outraged. Daria grins her most sardonic grin and shows them the "piercing" is just a clip-on ring...

And lastly, it is important to note that the societal rules regarding ear piercing [[ValuesDissonance aren't the same in every culture]]. For example, in most Latin American countries, it's traditional to have girls' ears pierced when they are babies since the parents can better monitor the aftercare that way. Elsewhere, generally it's only the most conservative households that don't let their kids get their ears pierced ''at all'' until they're legally adults.

Alice is finally a teenager! She's ready to get out, see the world, hang around town, and do all the cool stuff she couldn't before. She's also eyeing the fashion trends set by the cool girls at her school, and concludes that getting her ears pierced is the only way to prove she's finally a grown-up.

There's just one problem: [[ParentalFashionVeto Her parents won't allow it]], citing how she's too young to get her ears pierced, how dangerous ear piercing is, how easy it is for a piercing to get infected, how she doesn't need earrings to look beautiful and TrueBeautyIsOnTheInside, etc. No matter how vocally Alice protests that all the ''cool'' girls at school have pierced ears, and that everyone will think she's a loser if her ears aren't pierced, and that she's not a baby anymore, and that she understands the risks, their minds are made up.

Sometimes her parents aren't the obstacle, though; it's actually Alice herself who's too scared to go through with it. She really wants to look grown-up, but she's terrified of having studs shot into her ears with a device that looks like a staple gun. Luckily, she has supportive friends/parents/siblings who promise to go with her to the store and be there with her as she gets her ears pierced. And when it's all finished, she'll have beautiful earrings and be one step closer to being grown-up.

This trope is nearly AlwaysFemale. Male examples exist, but are less common due to the stigma around boys piercing their ears in some places.

And lastly, it is important to note that the societal rules regarding ear piercing [[ValuesDissonance aren't the same in every culture]]. For example, in most Latin American countries, it's traditional to have girls' ears pierced when they are babies, since the parents can better monitor the aftercare that way. Elsewhere, generally it's only the most conservative households that don't let their kids get their ears pierced ''at all'' until they're legally adults.

* In ''Film/WorkingGirl'', Creator/HarrisonFord's character explains that the scar on his chin was a result of him fainting when he got his ears pierced and hitting his chin on the toilet. (The story did the rounds as being taken from his real life, but in actual fact he lost control of his car while driving to work and trying to put his seatbelt on at the same time, hit a telephone pole with the car and the steering wheel with his face, and describes "inept emergency surgery" as the reason he ended up with the scar. He didn't get his ear piercing until about a decade after the movie was made.)

* ''Series/DogWithABlog'': One episode has a B-plot revolving around Chloe trying to convince Bennett and Ellen to take her to get her ears pierced. When they refuse multiple times on the belief that she's too young, she instead decides to trick Tyler into giving her a ride by lying about being given permission to go there. Their parents eventually find out and punish the both of them for it.

* ''Series/FullHouse'': "[[Recap/FullHouseS6E10ImNotDJ I'm Not D.J.]]" has Stephanie wanting to get her ears pierced though her father tells her she can't. She gets D.J.'s friend Kimmy to do it, but wasn't anticipating having to leave the studs in place until her ears have healed over the holes, which means she needs to find a way to keep Danny from seeing them, which she resorts to a [[Franchise/StarWars Princess Leia]] hair bun style for. She's forced to give up the deception when it becomes clear her ears are infected, admitting it to Danny who takes her to a doctor to get hear ears checked out and then for some ice cream since it's the last she's going have for a while.

* ''WesternAnimation/MyLifeAsATeenageRobot'': "[[Recap/MyLifeAsATeenageRobotS1E4EarNoEvilUnlicensedFlyingObject Ear No Evil]]" has Jenny wanting Dr. Wakeman to make her some pierced ears, as she was built without any external ears initially, after the [[AlphaBitch Crust cousins]] flaunt their new ear piercings at school one day and mock Jenny for not having any ears to get pierced. While her creator/mother refuses, [[AbhorrentAdmirer Sheldon]] is more than happy to make a pair for her. This results in Jenny spending a portion of the episode sporting a pair of comically large pierced ears which make her the unwitting subject of much mockery by her peers (even her own mother was holding back laughter when Jenny showed off her new ears to her) as well as prove to be a hinderance in her fight against the episode's MonsterOfTheWeek Lancer.

* ''WesternAnimation/RobotChicken'': In one of the parody sketches for ''WesternAnimation/InsideOut'', Riley is at a slumber party and one of her friends wants to pierce her ears as a teenage rite of passage. Her Emotions discuss if this is a good idea or not. As one of her emotions panics, it quickly turns into an ''Film/{{Inception}}'' reference as her emotion's emotions and two "extractors" try to make Riley decide for herself. It later [[Main/SmashCut smash cuts]] into Riley's funeral, revealing that Riley went thought with the ear piercing but then bled to death after asking her friend to "stab her in the ear."

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* ''Series/HowIMetYourMother'': In "[[Recap/HowIMetYourMotherS4E19Murtaugh Murtaugh]]", Barney decides to do all the things in a list of things you're too old to do after thirty. The first thing he does is pierce his own ear, which gets badly infected over the course of the episode.

And lastly, it is important to note that the societal rules regarding ear piercing [[ValuesDissonance aren't the same in every culture]]. For example, in most Latin American countries, it's traditional to have girls' ears pierced when they are babies.

Alice concludes that she can't possibly wait until she's 18 to get her ears pierced, and sneaks out of the house to go to the mall and get the procedure done. She'll find out how much it actually hurts, but still be glad she went through with it. Alternatively, if the place requires parental permission and she can't get it (or even fake it), she might try to DIY an ear piercing with a sewing needle, [[YouthIsWastedOnTheDumb which will probably end badly]].

There's just one problem: Her parents won't allow it, citing how she's too young to get her ears pierced, how dangerous ear piercing is, how easy it is for a piercing to get infected, how she doesn't need earrings to look beautiful and TrueBeautyIsOnTheInside, etc. No matter how vocally Alice protests that all the ''cool'' girls at school have pierced ears, and that everyone will think she's a loser if her ears aren't pierced, and that she's not a baby anymore, and that she understands the risks, their minds are made up.

->'''Danny''': D.J. got ''her'' ears pierced when ''she'' got to junior high. ''You'' can get ''your'' ears pierced when you get to junior high.\\
'''Stephanie''': But I'm not D.J.!\\
'''Danny''': Hey, I'm sorry, but I don't make the rules. ...Actually, I do.

-->'''Stephanie''': Grounded?
-->'''Danny''': Mmm-hmmm.

[[folder:Web Comics]]

And lastly, it is important to note that the societal rules regarding ear piercing aren't the same in every culture. For example, in most Latin American countries, it's traditional to have girls' ears pierced when they are babies.

-->'''Danny''': D.J. got ''her'' ears pierced when ''she'' got to junior high. ''You'' can get ''your'' ears pierced when you get to junior high.\\

* ''Series/FullHouse'': One episode has Stephanie wanting to get her ears pierced though her father tells her she can't. She gets D.J.'s friend Kimmy to do it, but wasn't anticipating having to leave the studs in place until her ears have healed over the holes, which means she needs to find a way to keep Danny from seeing them, which she resorts to a [[Franchise/StarWars Princess Leia]] hair bun style for. She's forced to give up the deception when it becomes clear her ears are infected, admitting it to Danny who takes her to a doctor to get hear ears checked out and then for some ice cream since it's the last she's going have for a while.

* ''Series/HowIMetYourMother'': In "The Murtaugh List", Barney decides to do all the things in the titular list of things you're too old to do after thirty. The first thing he does is pierce his own ear, which gets badly infected over the course of the episode.

'''Indices''': ThisIndexIsARealPain, CostumeTropes, EarTropes, RitualsAndCeremonies, TeenageTropes, {{Youngsters}}, AliceAndBob