Dirty Old Woman

How silly of me! I should have tied you to my bed.
—Nurse Edna, Maniac Mansion

The Distaff Counterpart to the Dirty Old Man. Notable, while the male version will engage in groping and similar behavior, this is fairly uncommon for the female version (although the occasional swat or pinch on the bottom is not out of the question), who will often make Double Entendre-laden references to an "adventurous" past. In some cases, such a character will be played by a guy in drag. Can become an Abhorrent Admirer.

Compare with Mrs. Robinson who is younger, prettier and still sexually active and doesn't have much problem seducing a younger guy.

Examples of Dirty Old Woman include:

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Anime and Manga

  • In the film adaptation of Howl's Moving Castle, the Witch of the Waste is this. Young men are so cute, indeed.
  • Dama from Haré+Guu is a ridiculous example of this.
  • Iono from Iono the Fanatics isn't actually that old, but fits this trope to a T, other than the fact that the objects of her affection are girls.
  • Sumire Ryuzaki from Prince of Tennis is often portrayed like this in doujinshi. The Beach Episode OAV also toys with the idea, for a mix of squick and laughs. (Though to be fair, she was pretty when young, and otherwise is an excellent and well-respected Team Mom and Stern Teacher).
  • In Part 3 of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, Joseph accidentally peeps into a bathroom stall on a woman like this, who instantly becomes obsessed with him and tries to seduce him. Hilarity Ensues.
  • Otome's grandmother in Cherry Juice would qualify for some simply for being committed to getting Otome and her step-brother together romantically. She cements her status in one scene where she and Otome are trying to listen through Minami's door after he brought home a girl from school, expecting that something racy was going on. When Otome leaned on the door too hard and fell into the room, Granny was standing at the ready with her camera in hand.
  • Ranma ½ anime, Dr. Tofu's mother gropes most buttocks of his son's potential brides to check if they have strong-enough bone that worth her family's name.

Architecture

Film

  • Max Bialystock's nameless "client" (credited as "Hold Me-Touch Me") in the opening scene of the original version of The Producers. Estelle Winwood, the actress who played her, was later quite vocal in stating her displeasure with the role and the movie.
  • In Yes-Man, there's an old woman in the protagonist's apartment complex who seduces attractive men by asking them to fix something at her house. Despite her appearance, she apparently gives very good head.
    • Dentures can be removed. All I'm sayin.
  • Rose Delvecchio enjoys peeping on threesomes through windows, shooting liquor straight from the bottle, and praising God.
  • There is, of course, the titular Professor's elderly grandmother in the Eddie Murphy remake of The Nutty Professor, who goes into anecdotes about her uhhh... past, over dinner. And then there's that one scene in the sequel...

Literature

  • The ur-example in English is probably the Wife of Bath from The Canterbury Tales, who is five times married. It is a bit hard to tell her exact age, though, as her first marriage was at 12 or so. Potentially, she might be more like some of Mae West's characters who lean in the Mrs. Robinson direction.
  • Nanny Ogg from Discworld is a perfect example of this and arguably has some inspiration from the Wife of Bath.
    • Topsy Lavish from Making Money is practically Nanny Ogg on crutches.
  • The titular character in Roald Dahl's The Landlady is heavily implied to be this. The bad kind. Poor, poor hapless Billy Weaver.
  • Stephanie Plum: Grandma Mazur.[context?]

Live-Action TV

  • Cooking Show: Paula Deen, or at least her television persona, often embodies this, especially on Paula's Party. She even flirted with Clay Aiken after he was out of the closet.
  • The comedy sketch show Harry Enfield and Chums featured a pair of characters officially named "The Lovely Wobbly Randy Old Ladies". Catch Phrase: "Young man! At our age!", said in response to anything that can even vaguely be considered a Double Entendre.
    • They are even shown ravishing the men on a few occasions- and working for a sex line. All played for laughs, naturally.
  • Betty the Auld Slapper in the Scottish sketch show Chewin the Fat. Usually seen relating her experiences of wartime life to a local historian, who was hoping for more about coping with rationing and the Blitz, and less about sleeping with G.I.s. She also has a tattoo that reads "I love Willie".

Care worker: Who's Willie?
Betty: Anybody's willie.

  • British comedies seem to love the concept of the rapacious landlady. In Gimmee Gimmee Gimmee there is Brenda, a retired prostitute who never misses a chance to be crude. Spaced has Marsha, a raddled alcoholic who has an arrangement with one of her tenants.
    • In Waiting for God, Diana explains that this trope is a symptom of women living longer than men, that when you have passed sixty five men are a rare commodity and if you touch hers then that is the only way you will perceive him for the rest of your life, does she make herself clear?
  • The Golden Girls: Blanche Devereaux, anyone?[context?]
  • The bus full of old people in the Doctor Who special "The End of Time". Minnie "The Menace" Hooper in particular; she even gropes the Doctor.
  • Supernatural had one in a third season episode who was more than a bit interested in Sam.
  • One episode of House involved an old lady who hit on House throughout the episode because of brain damage from syphilis. Another involved a couple of ostensibly Dirty Old People, although the both of them later came back individually to ask House to do something about the other's libido.
  • This member of the audience in Drew Carey's Improv-A-Ganza.
  • This was one of the "Weird Newscasters" on Whose Line Is It Anyway. The (female) improviser said, "You make me feel like a nubile teen," to which Colin replied, "You're...you're kidding yourself."
  • Agnes Brown the titular Mrs. Brown of Mrs. Browns Boys is one, and is played by series creator Brendan O'Carroll in drag; her best friend Winnie McGoogan is one as well, though she's played by O'Carroll's real life sister.

Music

Professional Wrestling

  • Mae Young in the WWE, now in her 80s, makes regular attempts to expose her breasts, makes out with any male wrestler she can get her hands on and even gave birth to a HAND she conceived with Mark Henry.

Theater

  • Aristophanes sometimes used such characters, such as in one notable instance where women take over the government of Athens and institute a rule that a young man must sleep with an older woman in order to be married, and thus a young male character is chased around by a crone. As Aristophanes lived in Ancient Greece, this makes it Older Than Feudalism.
  • Gilbert and Sullivan, inspired by the dame figure of pantomime which is played by a man, frequently featured repulsive older women chasing after young male characters.
  • Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet tends to present Juliet's nurse this way, potentially inspired by the Wife of Bath. However, the text's references to her biography, particularly the fact that she was a wet nurse for the 14-year-old Juliet, establish her as actually in her mid-30s. Thus, she was almost certainly intended as a "saucy maid" stock character rather than a crone.
  • In Stephen Sondhiem's Sweeney Todd (the musical, not the movie), the character of the Old Beggar Woman is an especially dirty example, with such memorable lines as

"Hey boy, sailor boy,
Want it snuggly harboured?
Open me gate, but dock it straight,
I see it lists to starboard!

    • Though she is most likely not doing it because of sexual attraction, but because she figures out that being a hooker probably earns her more money than simply begging.
  • The old woman in Voltaire's Candide fits this pretty well, somewhat more so in the musical than the novel.
  • Berthe from the musical Pippin.

Video Games

  • Pipra from Infinite Space, who constantly mentions to Yuri about "paying with his body". A bartender even notes this in one of the jobs.
  • As per the page quote, Nurse Edna from Maniac Mansion. Not only does she deliver the quoted line when capturing one of the boys (and "You're lucky you aren't a boy" to the girls), but she also responds to an apparent prank phone call with "There's no heavy breathing. Let me show you how to do it."
  • Some of Kreia's dialogue is downright filthy by the standards of the GFFA, especially if you're playing a male.
  • Matriarch Aethyta from Mass Effect 2, the bartender on Illium. Especially when she says "Sorry, no sex; just cleaned the bar!"
    • And in the third game has several gems where, among other things, she uses the phrase "useful as tits on a Hanar" and mentions that she's had at least one daughter with one, and her starry eyed reminiscing about Benezia's amazing rack, complete with a Wolf Whistle.

Web Comics

Western Animation

  • In the Disney/Pixar film Cars, there's a Dirty Old Car. No, really. She's called Lizzie (as in Tin Lizzie), and she takes great pleasure in slapping bumper stickers on the bumpers of attractive young cars.
  • The grandma in Tex Avery's Red Hot Riding Hood, pursuing poor Wolfie when he's clearly not interested. What do you expect? She runs a brothel!
  • Gorgeous Gal in the Woody Woodpecker cartoon A Fine Feathered Frenzy. She takes out an ad in the paper saying she is beautiful, rich, has plenty of food and desires to meet and marry a young man. She even includes the pocket change needed to call her in the ad. Gorgeous Gal seduces Woody with her sexy voice on the phone so he agrees to come over and plans to marry her. Unfortunately, it turns out she's an overweight and elderly anthropomorphic bird who loves Woodpeckers. She aggressively pursues Woody while he flees in terror.
  • The "World's Oldest Woman" of Histeria!
  • The Venture Brothers in the episode "Guess who's coming to State Dinner" Mrs. Manstrong is an example of this.

Real Life

Please only add examples that have been confirmed by the person being mentioned.

  • Cloris Leachman.[context?]
  • Rue McClanahan once said this: "People always ask me if I'm like Blanche. And I say, 'Well, Blanche was an oversexed, self-involved, man-crazy, vain Southern Belle from Atlanta. And I'm not from Atlanta.'"
  • Betty White. In an interview to promote The Proposal she joked "They wanted me to do the scene [the nude scene], but I doubt Ryan Reynolds could keep his hands off me!"
  • Germaine Greer. She even wrote a book about The Beautiful Boy. Courtesy Cover Link!
  • Dr. Ruth Westheimer is a pretty good Truth in Television example.[context?]
    • Her Canadian counterpart, Sue Johansen, also qualifies.[context?]
  • Stand-up comic Grandma Lee's act revolves around this, as seen on America's Got Talent.
  • A lot of dirty-old-woman routines owe a great deal to Jackie "Moms" Mabley.
  • Stephenie Meyer. Robert Pattinson has said that she makes him extremely uncomfortable whenever she's visiting a set. She was born in 1973, so she's not that old, but she apparently has a thing for teenage boys (though Pattinson's in his twenties, mind you) and even admitted she'd leave her husband if her underage hero Jacob Black were to show up at her door for a torrid affair.
  • Common enough Oop North; Liverpool, Merseyside, United Kingdom, has a version, but the Really Gets Around thing is not common there, and the older woman-younger man relationship dynamic is a often-seen there. Not to mention the homeless women, some of whom are considered Ms. Fanservice, unbelievably! The Dirty Old Woman trope comes into play here from their sense of humor, not that everyone will get Liverpudlian humor.
  • Jo Brand.[context?]
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