History Main / RacistGrandma

This can be TruthInTelevision. Although obviously not all old people are bigots, old people are more likely to subscribe to pre-civil rights cultural beliefs and are more likely to say [[http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/labnotes/archive/2007/09/25/why-grandpa-talks-like-chris-rock-in-nc-17-mode.aspx inappropriate thoughts out loud]]. However, this tends to be counterbalanced by the fact that they were raised in a "more polite" era than ours. (''More'' polite, not "polite.") Take [[AllInTheFamily Archie Bunker]], for instance, who took care to substitute "spade" for "nigger," "hebe" for "kike," etc. It can also be [[MistakenForRacist accidental]] if the grandma is using what was once the politically correct term, without being aware that it is [[SocietyMarchesOn now considered derogatory]], (e.g., in the article earlier in this paragraph the author recounts her negative feeling when an elderly man referred to someone as "colored", but this was in fact the politest term for black people when the man was likely raised, and the chosen way for most black people to describe themselves back then like the NAACP.)

[[AC:Film]]

* The sweet little grandma in WeddingCrashers is pretty anti-gay.. Apparently, Eleanor Roosevelt was a "rug-munching dyke", but that would be something of a subversion, as those are all very new slang.
* My Big Fat Greek Wedding has a little granny from the Greek side of the newlyweds that constantly complains about Turcs: "Turci Sacramenti!"

[[AC:Literature]]

[[AC:Live-Action TV]]

* Ida from ''MalcolmInTheMiddle''

** A character in the original [[VomitIndiscretionShot throws up graphically]] when she finds out that the food she's just sampled was made by someone who isn't white or that she otherwise disapproves of; [[OverusedRunningGag this joke was mildly amusing the first time.]]

* In {{ER}}, one old lady once said to Benton that she is uncomfortable with black doctor examinining her. Oh, and that lady? She was black, too.

[[AC:Music]]

[[AC:Newspaper Comics]]

** YourMileageMayVary. This troper saw her as more out of touch than anything

[[AC:Web Comics]]

[[AC:Web Original]]

[[AC:Real Life]]

* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MpE6ljPjSAk I can't trust Obama he's not...he's not...he's an Arab.]]

* If you're from the South, you may have relatives two or three generations back who were in the Ku Klux Klan. If you're from Germany or Austria, you may have had relatives two or three generations back who were in the Nazi Party or in Hitler Youth. Many of the moderate democratic political establishment in Cambodia today had roots in the Khmer Rouge. Not everyone in these situations was a "true believer", and may have been part of these institutions because they were (back then) the establishment. But some of them really were racists. Some people evolve in their old age, and some people take bigotry stubbornly to their graves. It's just human nature.

** What's so extreme about that? It sounds utterly mundane and boring. The straightest this could possibly be played.

* Sophia from ''TheGoldenGirls'' is sometimes this trope, and at other times the most progressive, open-minded, and tolerant person on the face of the earth, DependingOnTheWriter. It doesn't help that this show has [[NegativeContinuity terrible continuity]].

* Sophia from ''TheGoldenGirls'' is sometimes this trope incarnate, and at other times the most progressive, open-minded, and tolerant person on the face of the earth, DependingOnTheWriter. It doesn't help that this show has [[NegativeContinuity terrible continuity]].

* Sophia from ''TheGoldenGirls''. Not so much a bigot as someone who said whatever she thought, albeit rude, disparaging or culturally insensitive.

** What's so extreme about that? It sounds utterly mundane and boring. The straightest this could possibly be played.
* ThisTroper once worked in a nursing home in Germany where he encountered an old woman suffering from dementia, who occasionally made racists remarks about Poles, while being polish-born herself.

** What's so extreme about that? It sounds utterly mundane and boring. The straightest this could possibly be played.

** What's so extreme about that? It sounds utterly mundane and boring.

* Extreme RealLife example - former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown [[DidIJustSayThatOutLoud got caught on a TV microphone he forgot he was wearing]], referring to an old granny he met on a media-op-meet-the-locals-street-walk as a "bigoted old woman" because she complained to him about migrants.

* The grandma from ''Film/WeddingCrashers'' is pretty anti-gay.

* The sweet little grandma in WeddingCrashers. Apparently, Eleanor Roosevelt was a "rug-munching dyke", but that would be something of a subversion, as those are all very new slang.

** Excellent? It's just "A racist person got their comeuppance! Nyah, nyah, nyah!" This film doesn't even make an attempt to explain why the woman is wrong and racism is bad. Instead, this is treated like something you should already know, which raises the question what the whole point of the film is. I think I know: to make people who already believe that racism is bad feel like they have the moral high ground. [[SarcasmMode And portraying a black person as eating tickets is not racist at all! Why didn't they go ahead and showed him flinging his poo at her?!]]
** It's meant to be a story first and foremost, so [[MST3KMantra relax.]]

** Excellent? It's just "A racist person got their comeuppance! Nyah, nyah, nyah!" This film doesn't even make an attempt to explain why the woman is wrong and racism is bad. Instead, this is treated like something you should already know, which raises the question what the whole point of the film is. I think I know: to make people who already believe that racism is bad feek like they have the moral high ground. [[SarcasmMode And portraying a black person as eating tickets is not racist at all! Why didn't they go ahead and showed him flinging his poo at her?!]]

[[quoteright:256:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/racist_ladyII_4736.JPG]]
[[caption-width-right:258:[[{{Schwarzfahrer}} A nigger just ate my tickets, I swear!]]]]

[[caption-width-right:258:[[{{Schwarzfahrer}} A nigger just ate my tickets, i swear!]]]]

* JayLeno has interviewed Truman Capote's aunt on his show. While she has not said anything racist, she has been known to say tactless things such as calling young women "whores."