Rush Hour: James Carter (ENFP)

Rush Hour is a series of three movies, with a fourth coming out in 2024. There are two main characters in the show, Carter and Lee. Our focus in this article is on James Carter. Popular opinion puts Carter as an ESFP, which is understandable, but we actually see more of a case for ENFP. The Ne in some of these older characters is a bit less obvious, because people often look for the puns and the movie references, but those just weren’t as prevalent at that time. Of course, there’s also the assumption that action-oriented characters are always Se. In our opinion, Carter ultimately approaches situations more like a ENFP, than a ESFP.

Ne:

“Lee, I’m alive. My whole life flashed in front of me. In three years, I’ll be married to a Chinese woman. We had three kids, looked just like you, only a little darker.”

“Yeah, we go to Fiji. Hideout for a year. Maybe change our names. Get jobs as bartenders. And imma call you Kiko.”

First of all, Carter is a clear extraverted perceiving dominant. Carter is known for being reckless and impulsive. He brings chaotic energy to every situation that he’s in. This is obvious right from the beginning of the first movie, where he accidentally destroys half a city block and gets two cops shot. In addition, he falls into common extraverted stereotypes like being socially confident and generally loud.

The way Carter reacts in high stress moments was the biggest indicator that he’s an ENFP not an ESFP. Carter’s first impulse is to spin tall tales and talk himself out of situations. There are situations throughout the three movies where his first reaction could have been physical, but he chooses to talk instead. For instance, in the second movie, a woman kicks him, and instead of actually doing anything, he just reacts by talking, which gets him kicked again.

Carter says various random things when trying to get what he wants out of a situation. In the restaurant, while asking to see Juntao, he talks about being a very busy man, with a wife waiting for him to come home, while their baby is pooping all over the house and in need of diapers. In a later scenario, he claims to be “blackinese”, with a half-brother in Beijing. There are similar instances throughout the series.

Carter struggles to stay focused on the current subject or goal, instead making loosely-connected jokes or references. For instance, he makes scattered references to various celebrities, or basketball, and even makes a joke about Chelsea Clinton while discussing the ransom demand with the first movie’s villain. Similarly, when trying to get Lee to open up about his brother, Carter goes off on a random tangent about chicken fighting, before returning to the subject at hand.

Carter often, out of the blue, verbalizes potential future scenarios that are irrelevant to the current task In the third movie, when Lee asks Carter if he’s thinking what Lee is thinking, Carter instantly replies with “Yeah, we go to Fiji. Hideout for a year. Maybe change our names. Get jobs as bartenders. And imma call you Kiko.” Of course, Lee was actually thinking that they need to go to France, and immediately after this joke, Carter admits to knowing that. He does something similar after claiming that his life flashed in front of his eyes.

Fi:

“I don’t know what to say. It’s like a dream come true. I got a idea though. I got a idea. Why don’t y’all take that badge and shove it…I’m LAPD.”

“Because they don’t give a d*** about you! They don’t like you! I don’t like you!”

“I don’t want no partner, I don’t need no partner and I ain’t never gonna have no partner. Did Kojak have a partner?”

More often than not, Carter demonstrates his Fi in an immature way, because he as a person is immature. He’s openly selfish and constantly putting excess attention on himself in an obnoxious way. In some instances, he can come across as extremely honest about who he is, while other times he inflates himself to seem more important than he is. However, either way, he is not at all in tune with the emotional environment. He reacts purely based on how he’s feeling and thinking, with little regard for others.

To give some examples, in the third movie, Carter seems oblivious as to why Lee’s mad at him, and in the first movie, he bluntly tells Lee that nobody likes him, including Carter himself. In another scenario, Carter plays around with the possibility of becoming Secret Service and guarding the president. Lee points out that Carter would never take a bullet for someone, to which Carter quickly (and honestly) responds with “yeah, but they don’t know that.”

Carter struggles to be associated with the LAPD, because of what happened to his father. Because of that, he wishes that he were FBI instead, which is indicated when he admits to having applied for the FBI. He spends most of the first movie pretending that he is FBI, because that is his ideal. At the very end, he accepts the LAPD as part of his identity, and very rudely turns down a job offer from FBI agents. All of this, being ultimately driven by ideals and values rather than reality or logic, seems more consistent with Fi.

Te:

“No, it ain’t. This is the United States of James Carter. I’m the president, I’m the emperor, I’m the king. I’m Michael Jackson, you Tito. You belong to me.”

Carter tends to be both blunt and controlling. He wants to be in charge, and typically acts like he is. This can make him an extremely difficult person, and rebellious toward authority. In the process of being this way, Carter is incredibly straightforward about it. In other words, his refusal to yield control to anyone else is obvious, rather than subtle attempts at manipulation (which are more characteristic of Fe.) Instead, he’ll bluntly state what he wants or what needs to happen, expecting people to listen.

Carter tries to claim externally recognized authority when trying to achieve a specific result. In some instances, this surfaces as making himself seem more important than he is, so he can gain respect or admiration. In other scenarios, like when Carter has to escort Lee around, he uses authority as a means to maintain physical control. With Lee, he very clearly asserts his authority, albeit in a ridiculous way, by claiming every important title he can think of. He even claims that Lee belongs to him. Of course, none of this actually works or gets Lee to listen, which frustrates Carter.

Si:

“What you did was dangerous and completely against policy.” – Captain Diel

Carter’s inferior Si manifests in a couple of different ways, including the common struggle inferior introverted perceivers have with recognizing the longterm implications of their actions. Carter’s tendency to bring chaos with him, and not care about the aftermath, demonstrates this quite plainly.

However, Carter also struggles with getting distracted and failing to track what’s going on around him. For instance, at the start of the first movie, he is an hour late to an undercover meeting with a criminal. In another instance, at the start of the third movie, he gets lost in his music while directing traffic to such a degree that he causes multiple car wrecks. Lastly, toward the end of the third movie, he completely forgets about the girl that’s tied up outside the building (even though she’s in view), and instead of rushing to save her, starts doing a victory dance after winning his fight.

Inferior Si also manifests in the unnecessary amount of details that Carter provides in the various tangents he goes off on or in the stories he tells. A good example of this can be seen when he goes on about his brother’s chicken fights.