Jean Cabot

Living… in the lap of luxury. Jean’s husband Rick is the District Attorney of Los Angeles, and she is content to marinade in their tastefully furnished, too-big house.

Profession… homemaker. Although she employs a gardener as well as Maria, her loyal Salvadorian maid, and after they’re finished there’s not much work left for Jean to do. And so she mills around the house in her sweat suit, chatting on the phone with her friend Carol.

Relationship Status… married. Rick serves as her primary outlet when she needs to vent, which is often.

Challenge… dealing with her racial prejudices. One night as they get into their Lincoln Navigator in a ritzy part of Los Angeles, Jean and Rick are carjacked by a pair of black men, which for Jean confirms what she believed would happen when she saw the men moments before the incident. She explains her predicament to Rick: “If a white person sees two black men walking towards her and she turns and walks in the other direction, she's a racist, right?” The carjacking episode deepens her suspicions of all colored people, such as the Hispanic locksmith whom she is convinced is going to “sell [the] key to one of his homies.”

Personality…irritable, sulky, and distrusting. Jean is a bomb threatening to explode at any moment. She snaps at Maria for the smallest of offenses. She snaps at Rick when she feels he is being patronizing. The anxieties of modernity are too great for jean, and she must snap to cope. Ultimately, she snaps because she is miserable, and misery loves company.