Line #64 Main/ElderlyBlueHairedLady


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3	%% This page has been alphabetized. Please add new examples in the correct order. Thanks!
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6	[[quoteright:330:[[Series/AreYouBeingServed https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/mrs_slocombe.png]]]]
7	[[caption-width-right:330:[[KaleidoscopeHair One of her MANY hair colors.]]]]
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9	->''"Now the goose is on the table,\
10	And the pudding made of fig, ahh,\
11	And the blue and silver candles\
12	That would just have matched the hair in Grandma's wig."''
13	-->-- '''Elmo & Patsy''', "Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer"
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15	Grey hair has often been considered a sign of respectable old age. Unfortunately, not everyone becomes a [[SilverFox Silver Vixen]] with age: those with one or two [=MC1R=] variant alleles will instead find that their hair turns an ugly dirty yellow. Older women in TheSeventies and earlier who wanted to be gracefully grey would therefore get their stylists to treat their yellowing hair with a blue rinse, which, with luck, would tone down the yellow and leave a silver grey. It didn't always work -- for not everyone's hair absorbs the same amount of dye -- [[MyHairCameOutGreen and many older women walked around with distressingly blue hair]]. This led to this trope and also to the phrase "the blue rinse set", used in TheSeventies and TheEighties to describe older women in general (and still used in [[UsefulNotes/BritishPoliticalSystem British politics]] to describe old Tory women who don't think women should participate in politics and make sure that happens by [[{{Hypocrite}} taking control of local branches of the Conservative Party]]).
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17	As an EvolvingTrope, considering that the elderly women nowadays spent their youth in the 1970s, especially those who were punk rockers, some daring elderly women are [[NonconformistDyedHair deliberately choosing to dye their hair ocean blue, hot pink, or even more daring colors such as lemon yellow, apple green, or fire engine red]].
18
19	SubTrope of CoveringUpYourGray.
20
21	----
22	!!Examples:
23	[[foldercontrol]]
24
25	[[folder:Films -- Animation]]
26	* The violent old lady in the ''Franchise/{{Madagascar}}'' movies is codenamed "Bluehair" by the penguins.
27	[[/folder]]
28
29	[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]
30	* Alex's mother in ''Film/AClockworkOrange'' is shown with bluish-purplish hair. While audiences now might guess that she's a superannuated punk rocker, her color is an exaggerated blue rinse treatment.
31	* In ''Film/FieldersChoice'', Zach refers to an old woman he crashes into at Philip's office as "the old lady with the blue hair." The woman snaps, "This is distinguished silver, young man!"
32	* Vice Admiral Holdo in ''Film/TheLastJedi'' has pink hair and is in her early fifties. According to prequel novel, ''Literature/LeiaPrincessOfAlderaan'', she does so to [[CulturalRebel culturally rebel]] against her homeworld's celebration of being TheStoic.
33	* In the (rather obscure) comedy movie ''Meilleu Espoir Féminin'', one of the main characters is the village's hairdoer, who gets nicknamed "Schmurf" because all the old ladies come to his salon to get dyed blue. He angrily rants about dyeing the next one green, because "maybe that way they'll call me "Hulk" ! That'll at least be slightly manlier than "Schmurf" !"
34	* Mallory's neglectful mother in ''Film/NaturalBornKillers'' has blue-purple hair as a reference to ''Film/AClockworkOrange.''
35	[[/folder]]
36
37	[[folder:Literature]]
38	* Aunt Beatrice from ''Literature/The39Clues''.
39	* In ''Literature/AmeliasNotebook'', there is one occasion where the titular character zones out in the lunch line and almost mistakes an elderly cafeteria worker for one of her troll dolls due to her blue-tinted hair.
40	* By the end of ''Literature/AuntieMame'', the titular character's hair "which had all gone to gray, was rinsed to a delicate periwinkle blue". Her great-nephew notices this:
41	-->She pressed her nose against Mike's and looked into his eyes. "I've never ''seen'' hair the color of yours, my little love. It's so red!"\
42	"I've never seen hair the color of yours, either," Mike said. "It's ... it's so ''blue''!"
43	* This is a cliche of the witches in Paige's coven in ''[[Literature/TheOtherworld Dime Store Magic]]''. She laments that for all too many of them, it's entirely true.
44	* "The Hot Chestnut Horse" by Patricia H . Kibbe in volume 7 of ''Cricket'' magazine has a girl try to add a little bluing to her white horse for a show, and ending up with a blue horse. She then tries to cover it up with a chestnut-colored temp dye. HilarityEnsues when it rains...
45	* While getting registered for school in ''Literature/InTheYearOfTheBoarAndJackieRobinson'', [[AnImmigrantsTale Shirley Temple Wong]] encounters one of these. She doesn't bat an eye, since she's already noticed that "hair comes in [[BlondeBrunetteRedhead all colors]] in America."
46	[[/folder]]
47
48	[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
49	* Mrs. Slocombe from ''Series/AreYouBeingServed'' often dyed her hair some odd color nearly every episode. Usually, it was blue.
50	* Conversed in ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'' when Willow describes her future self as "old and blue-haired".
51	%%* Phyllis Pearce in ''Series/CoronationStreet''.
52	* ''Creator/DameEdnaEverage'' always has exaggerated pink or purple hair in her various TV appearances.
53	* In ''Series/FullHouse'' Joey is trying to hunt down a woman he met. One phone number leads him to an 80+ year old woman of the same name who [[ParrotExposition apparently has]] blue hair.
54	-->'''Joey:''' Are you single?
55	* Dorothy from ''Series/TheGoldenGirls'' isn't quite blue-haired, but she's close.
56	* Briefly, in an episode of ''Series/{{iCarly}}'', there was a ''green''-haired old lady (who sucks on a baby pacifier).
57	* Thelma Harper from ''Series/MamasFamily'', who was once even referred to as a "blue-haired old dragon" by her daughter-in-law.
58	* Grandma Yetta from ''Series/TheNanny''. Taken beyond its logical extreme when Fran's ''other'' grandmother, [[http://thenannytv.wikia.com/wiki/Nettie_Fine Nettie]], shows up with a ''pink'' rinse in her hair.
59	[[/folder]]
60
61	[[folder:Music]]
62	%%* Referenced in "Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer" by Elmo & Patsy. In some recordings, at least.
63	* In Music/RayStevens' "A Little Blue-Haired Lady", the narrator is stuck behind one who is driving 20 MPH on the interstate.
64	* Referenced in Music/JoniMitchell's "A Strange Boy" from her ''Music/{{Hejira}}'' album:
65	-->''While the boarders were snoring\
66	Under crisp white sheets of curfew\
67	We were newly lovers then\
68	We were fire in the stiff, blue-haired house rules''
69	[[/folder]]
70
71	[[folder:Web Comics]]
72	* In ''Webcomic/IrregularWebcomic'', David Morgan-Mar states that he [[http://www.irregularwebcomic.net/717.html deliberately changes]] Jane Goodall's hair to that color.
73	[[/folder]]
74
75	[[folder:Western Animation]]
76	* Alice Green from ''WesternAnimation/BigCityGreens'' has aqua blue hair. When in her youth, she's a brunette.
77	%%* Lazy Susan in ''WesternAnimation/GravityFalls''.
78	* WesternAnimation/{{Goofy}}'s [[Recap/MickeyMouseS2E6GoofysGrandma grandmother]] in the ''WesternAnimation/{{Mickey Mouse\|2013}}'' series of 2013-'14
79	* {{Gender Inverted\|Trope}} in ''WesternAnimation/RickAndMorty'', where Rick has pale blue hair. It seems to be natural, as his younger clone had it too.
80	* Tommy's Aunt Miriam from ''WesternAnimation/{{Rugrats}}'' has blue hair. It's later revealed to be a wig.
81	* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'':
82	** Agnes Skinner, Seymour's "[[MyBelovedSmother beloved smother]]—I mean, mother". A FlashBack shows she used to have light brown hair.
83	** Jacqueline Bouvier, Marge Simpson's mother, also has faintly blue hair, although in her case, it's just a faded version of her hair color from when she was younger.
84	* Gwen from ''WesternAnimation/TotalDrama'' has [[NonconformistDyedHair blue streaks in her hair]], and [[AllThereInTheManual one of her official bios]] states that she uses her grandmother’s hair dye, implying her grandmother is an example of this trope.
85	[[/folder]]

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