Topical Blog due Tuesday 2/21 @ midnight

The first time when I saw some profiling was when they were trying to pick which person to have interview Hannibal. I think that the situation was profiling because of the fact that they wanted Hannibal to talk to her openly so they picked someone that he would find attractive and young. This showed that they were profiling Hannibal's personality. I think that this is accurate to real life because you want someone who is going to get the person to talk, in with them.

The main part in this movie where they give a profile is when they are in the car going to look at one of the bodies. Clarice’s boss gives her photographs and asks her to give him a profile. The things that I found accurate about this profile at that point in the movie would have been the fact that he didn’t hunt outside of this ethnic group, which would make him white. I didn’t think that she would have been able to know the man’s age or if he was strong or not. Especially when we get later in the movie he doesn’t seem to be very strong, but he isn’t weak either. She also doesn’t know for a fact that he won’t stop. In the end of the movie when Clarice is in his house you get to see his partly created human skin, and to me he may have stopped after he completed it, or if she was right he may have continued making more skins. One of the things that Clarice missed until Hannibal pointed it out was that the perpetrator was a transgendered man.

Hannibal also gives the Senator a profile of who the man would be, but he was also aware of who the perpetrator was. His descriptions would have been very accurate. Also when talking to the Senator he profiles her and tells her everything he can describe about who she is. I found that to be quite interesting. I am honestly not sure if someone would be able to say that much about a person just from meeting them. I wouldn’t think that was accurate, but Hannibal was also quite intelligent.

There are a couple instances where they use geographic profiling. They first use it when labeling where each victim lived and then where their bodies were found. This was in chapter five of the C&K book. This is also the type of profiling that I found interesting. In the movie when Clarice and another worker are looking at the maps again they start to realize that there was a pattern to his first victim. Geographic profiling is used in real cases so I found that to be very accurate. I was actually kind of impressed with that part of the movie because it seems like something that could be left out in other instances.

They never say what kind of killer he was in the movie, or if they did I cannot recall when, but Buffalo Bill was an organized killer based on the books definition because of the fact that he carefully selected his victims based on size, gender, and skin type. They do show in the movie that he was stalking her and had night vision goggles. I think it was important that they showed him stalking her because it is accurate to some serial killers in real life. Some are organized and others are disorganized, but I do think that the fact the pointed out which type he was was important.

Profiling has a key role in this movie. It can be seen in multiple different scenes throughout the movie.
The first scene in which profiling can be seen is when Crawford was trying to decide who to send to interview Lector. They wanted a female that was young and attractive because they knew Lector would be more likely speak to her and open up to her. I think this was important in the movie and in real life situations.

Profiling is most easily picked out during the scene when Crawford and Clarice are going to examine the body of one of the girls killed by Buffalo Bill. She looks at the case photographs and concludes that killer is a white male, that has his own place, 30's-40's, strong, precise, never impulsive and that he will never stop because he is getting back at his work. This profile is very accurate with who turns out to be the killer in the end. One of the things Clarice missed in her profile was that he was a transgendered man. This seems like a fairly accurate display of what how a real profile would be composed except that she didn't look at police reports just the pictures of the bodies. Another reason I believe this to be an accurate display is because killers typically stay within their ethnic group and she points that out, thats how she concluded that Buffalo Bill was in fact white. Another reason why we know this is a good profile is because when he is getting his next victim, the senators daughter, he stalks outside her apartment waiting for the perfect time, showing that he is in fact precise and not impulsive. From chapter five reading we can categorize that he is an organized killer.

More examples of when profiling is used is by Lector. During her first interview with Lector tries to profile Clarice saying she was a rube and poor white trash from West Virginia dreaming that she would get to the FBI. The next is when he is giving Clarice insight to Buffalo Bill. One of his previous patients, told of his violent sexually tendencies, Lector continues saying that he was made a killer from years of systematic abuse, and that he hates his identity so he believes himself to be transexual. Another instance later on in the movie when he was seen to be profiling was when he meets the senator. He gives what he believes Buffalo Bill looks like, 5'10 thirty-five years old, 180 lb., blonde hair. Hannibal Lector also gives the senator of what he believes to be true about herself. I don't think this is very accurate because they didn't talk about anything that would have given him information about what he concluded. But I do believe that his profile about Buffalo Bill would be more accurate. Since he was a psychiatrist he has a keen sense of applying his knowledge of psychology to people. Also because his lover was one of his patients.

Another type of profiling was used in this movie, geographical profiling. Clarice and her friend are looking at the sites of where the bodies were found and the order. This and the note the Lector wrote on it helps her realize that he must have known the first victim and where he must be living. I think this is fairly accurate because in the reading we learned that geographical profiling is more statistically correct. I enjoyed watching this movie and applying my new information about profiling.

Profiling was a very significant part of this movie, from beginning to end. The first time profiling was used, even though it wasn’t quite traditional in the sense of criminal profiling, was when Jack was profiling his possible FBI agents to be used to ask Hannibal questions. It was important to profile the possibilities because they needed to find someone who would make Hannibal comfortable and get him to talk and give information about Buffalo Bill. Though this isn’t as well recognized as being profiling, I think it is still a very important part of the movie and any process when trying to find the right person to complete a task.

The most obvious case of traditional profiling occurred while the agents were in the car on their way to go view one of Buffalo Bill’s victims. Starling is handed the case file with images and creates a profile on the spot. While this could be necessary in some situations, I doubt that a profile such as this that was created in such a short time frame would have turned out to be so accurate. The profile she gave cited that the perpetrator was probably a white male in his 30’s-40’s who is strong, fairly organized, and would not stop killing. The profile turned out to be quite accurate, though Buffalo Bill turned out to be transgendered. The part about his age, race, and organization proved to be quite true because we had the opportunity to view him stalking the senator’s daughter. It could also be considered to be very thoughtful and organized that he strategically starved his victims for a few days to loosen up their skin. In the end, it wasn’t really Starling’s profile that led to the discovery of him, rather it was mere luck. Another part about this movie that I found to be inaccurate was the fact that Starling herself started doing detective work. I realize that she was an almost FBI agent, but I don’t think profilers really have a place in actually investigating crimes on their own to the degree that Starling did.

Psychiatrist and madman Hannibal Lecter also offers various insights and profiles of sorts into the life and mind of the killer. While most of his clues seem to be inaccurate or confusing riddles, Hannibal probably knows more than he is willing to share throughout the movie. He uses these opportunities as chances to better his own personal circumstances.

Geographic profiling is used when they map out the locations of where Buffalo Bill’s victims were found and were they had lived. This special mapping technique, as discussed in chapter five, is eventually what led Starling to start searching in the right places, which is what then led to her happening upon Buffalo Bill. Though Starling’s identification of the moth when she entered Buffalo Bill’s house is what led her to a positive identification of him, I still can’t credit her initial profile as being what made this all happen. Just as the book notes, it’s often hard work and looking over the details tediously that leads to the identification of the perpetrator, though the geographic profiling definitely helped Starling along in the right direction.

I think the depiction of Buffalo Bill as a serial killer was fairly accurate with his execution of organized killings. The time he put in to stalk his victims, decide where to dump the bodies, weighing down the first body, and even deciding to starve his victims first show the side of killers who don’t kill on impulse. Though the representation of Buffalo Bill loosely represents the real killer Ed Gein, parts like his decaying mother in the bathtub weren’t true to his real crimes or life.

Silence of the Lambs is an interesting movie, especially for a psychology student. Although it is majorly dramatized (for Hollywood) and not typical for an FBI investigator to encounter such a case, it is very good as a "what if" sort of movie. I don't really know that there was much in-depth profiling used in picking Clarice for this investigation, but I think that she was good for the case because she was smart. I don't think, however, that it was wise to have a regular FBI agent try to analyze a well trained (and insane) psychiatrist like Dr. Lector. I think that ideally Lector's doctor should have been more involved in working with Clarice to find answers.
Lector's insights about Buffalo Bill are intriguing, but also not realistic. It isn't very scientific of him to be so sure that Buffalo Bill is a faux-transsexual, when there is no hard evidence to back up the claim...but for the glamour of Hollywood, Dr. Lector was right, and Buffalo Bill ended up thinking that he was transsexual when he really was just ashamed of himself because of his past- mis attributing the shame as shame in his sexual identity. This is a very strange corner of psychology, and there are many more sexual/gender identities than straight/gay males/females. This is why I find it hard to believe that Lector could have (using psychoanalysis, nonetheless) accurately figured out Buffalo Bill's deepest psychological issues.

This movie was entertaining, however I think that if the average person (non psychology-person) were to watch it, they might get the wrong idea about what psychologists do...like how people assume that every psychologist is going to use Freudian psychoanalysis to "figure out" everyone, and that everyone has some sort of psychological disorder.

So I was very scared about watching this movie. I am not into scary movies at all and I even thought about talking to Dr. MacLin to see if she would have an alternative assignment I could do instead. However I grew some you know whats and I watched the movie. I was pleasantly surprised. The movie was no where near as scary as I thought it would be, and it was a different kind of horror. It reminded me a lot of the movie “Seven”, one of my favorite scary movies.

Profiling can be seen a lot throughout this movie. The most obvious example is when Clarice asks Dr. Lector (I love that everyone calls him Dr. in this movie. I find that very interesting.) to profile the Buffalo Bill case. This is where the movie falters from the real world. I HIGHLY doubt, no matter how talented the inmate, that the FBI would ever make a deal with the incarcerated to do the profiling on such a high-profile, public case. This was the whole objective of the movie in the first place! Her boss (can’t remember the name at the moment) wanted Clarice to go and almost “seduce” Hanibal Lector into helping them with the case. I don’t believe that this would every occur in the real world.

An example of profiling that does happen in real life is when Crawford (looked up the bosses name) and Clarice are on their way to examine the body. As discussed in the book, profilers examine forensic evidence in order to look for any distinctions and/or any patterns. Crawford and Clarice (who should have been wearing gloves- did they really not do this in the 90’s?) recorded their initial findings while examining the body. This is also what they do in the real world of forensics. It’s much more efficient and easier than trying to remember their findings and writing them down later. Even in the car ride their we saw examples of profiling. Crawford asked Clarice what her initial findings were on Buffalo Bill. One of the things she mentioned was that he was probably white because all his victims were white, and killers tend to murder their victims within their race. She also stated that he was probably old because he was patient and took his time, for he left his victims alive (at the time they thought no reason) for three days. They also concluded that he was male from the string of female victims. These are all valid conclusions that any real profiler would more than likely make if he or she were working on the Buffalo Bill case.

Throughout the movie, profiling was a large part in finding Buffalo Bill.
Profile starts as soon as the case of Buffalo Bill begins. Like the book states, they usually use profiling on serial kills. They are able to use previous cases to acquire an analysis of the killer. In this scene, the FBI finds another one of buffalo bills victims in the river. Starling is questioned by her boss about her inferences about the killer. She is given photos and police reports of the killing. He briefs her on the previous cases, as well as their location. Then, she is asked to gives her opinion on the killer. She emphasizes on the significant aspects of his personality such as him having his own house because he needs the privacy for the in-depth way he kills them.
I believe that Buffalo Bill is an organized killer. The book describes an organized killer as someone that chooses their victims carefully. They wait for the right moment and plan what they are going to do with their killer. We can clearly see those characteristics in the movie. Buffalo Bill makes sure to pick victims that are size 14. He has planned out to beat them and then skin them later. All creatively planned.
Lector’s is a large part and plays many roles in profiling Buffalo Bill. Often times, buffalo bill talks in riddles and refuses to share his true knowledge. However, by the end of the movie, Starling is able to breakdown his pieces of knowledge into something useful. At the beginning, Lector immediately riddles of characteristics of the victim such as her size. He uses the significance of the mark to divulge into the man’s gender preferences and deeper details of his personality. Another influential scene is when Lector gives a description of the killer. He also uses signature clues and descriptions of the killer for the Senator and FBI to use.
The FBI is inaccurate at their assumptions. In the helicopter scene, we witness how profiling can lead to misleading conclusions when one gets on the wrong path. Like referenced in the book, sometimes professions assume tunnel vision. A profile might match a suspect; however, they may not be the correct suspect. They used the offender register and the description happens to match this mans. From there, the man happened to fall under other categories that they had profiled for the killer. Immediately they assumed this man was guilty and storm his house. In the end, it was the wrong man. Starling used her intuition to discover who it really was.
At the end, Starling and her friend start to overturn things that lector said about the killer. They dig deeper into the victims as well. One surprising thing that the book stated was that a profiler has to get into the victims head as well. Here, we can see them starting to do that. Also, they use geographic profiling to find a location for the house. The “random” places that the previous girls were killed were plotted on a map. Then, they used the different locations to pinpoint a logical location for the house.

Profiling is first shown in Silence of the Lambs about 35 minutes into the movie in a scene between Clarice Starling and her boss Agent Crawford riding in a car. She begins to state several characteristics about the serial killer Buffalo Bill based upon profiling. She believes he is white because his victims are white. He lives in his own home because he needs privacy to keep his victims alive for 3 days and to cut their skin off. She believes he is in his 30's to 40's based upon organized crime scenes. When we see him abducting the senators daughter he demonstrates almost all of the details listed as an organized crime scene from table 5.1 in our book. He has planned the crime, he targeted, fallowed, and watched this individual before the crime. He targets victims and before he gets to see their clothes size, he knows that they are a size 14. He then had a controlled conversation with the victim and effectively lured her to him. He preplanned the scene so he would be in control of the victim. He effectively restrained her by knocking her unconscious. He disposed of other victims bodies in a manner that did not leave evidence. He transported the victims to other random spots to dispose of the body. These characteristics suggest he is of at least average intelligence, and interpersonally competent. Our book also mentions that serial killers often white, males that go for one particular type of individual, which is very true in this movie. Buffalo Bill is a mission-oriented type of killer which suggests he is likely to be psychotic.

The next time ww see profiling is when we are shown the geographic profile developed by the FBI. This helps them locate the home of the serial killer in relation to his kidnappings and dumping of the bodies.

Throughout the movie we observe Dr. Lecture doing his own profiling. He suggests there is an issue regarding the sexual identity of Buffalo Bill. He gives clues to Starling by suggesting she look at all the hospitals for a male wanting a sex change that was refused.

I thought overall the movie was rather accurate in its portrayal of profiling. The main problem I saw with the film was that the FBI agent did everything in the case. In real life there would have been many more people involved and I find it unlikely for a student to be used.

I remember seeing Silence of the Lambs when I was very young. I just remembered a few of the main scenes that made the movie popular. Like the famous line when Hannibal Lecter says, "Hello Clarice." Watching it now I picked up a lot of the various information that I didn't understand when I was young. For instance the information that is presented about Hannibal and the serial killer Buffalo Bill.

It is weird but I actually saw a connection between Hannibal and Clarice. Crawford had a great idea to send Hannibal a young attractive woman in order to get information out of him. Clarice isn't a very sexy person and her accent is terrible but she has a very calming and naturally beautiful face. I wonder if Hannibal knew all along that Crawford sent her for information about Buffalo Bill. I got the feeling that he knew but couldn't help but to become connected to the woman and would sacrifice the information he knew in order to learn more about Clarice.

Clarice was almost dead on with the profiling of Buffalo Bill. However, that wasn't enough information to catch him. She might have determined characteristics about his type of personality, strength, and intentions but that wasn't enough to catch him. Geographic profiling also helped them get closer to solving the case. But I believe without the information they got from Hannibal they probably wouldn't have caught him in time to safe the girl. There also is a possibility that they would never found him if it wasn't for Hannibal.

I thought it was very intelligent idea that the mother on the victim went on TV and talked about her daughter. Repeating her name several times made it clear that she wasn't just an object but a person. A person that many cared about. It showed in the scene where Buffalo Bill started crying when he said IT puts the lotion on its skin or else IT gets the hose again. He referred to her as an IT instead of a person. But you can tell he showed sympathy when he told her to put the lotion in the basket. He started to cry and then in order to cover his weakness he showed anger in order to hide how he truly was feeling.

It was very strange but I couldn't help but to like Hannibal. Even though he was a serial killer and he was a very strange man his intelligence was intriguing. His history and his way of profiling Clarice was very interesting as well. Overall watching the movie brought back a lot of memories from my childhood. Watching the movie again shows how much I have learned and how much I have matured over the years. I enjoyed this assignment very much.

Criminal profiling is very important within the context of this film. To me, Silence of the Lambs, is a classic example of criminal profiling and the first thing I think of when I hear of criminal profiling.

The first instance of criminal profiling occurred when Agent Starling was asked to interview Hannibal Lecter. She was asked to question him and take note of any drawing or gestures he made during the interview. Related to this, I found it interesting that they picked Agent Starling for this job. They obviously had their reasons. Agent Crawford was doing some kind of profiling himself. He decided to place Agent Starling in front of Hannibal because she was a good-looking female and she was still in training. This was something Hannibal Lecter was sure to notice and become interested in. In fact, within their first interview Hannibal Lecter creates a profile of Agent Starling based on her accent and her clothes. I think that it is very unlikely that they would use an Agent that going through training to interview a dangerous man such as Hannibal. I think it is also very unethical to use her as a pawn.

As the story unfolds it becomes clear that Agent Starling is being used for more than one purpose. She is purposefully kept in the dark so that Hannibal Lecter trusts her. For example, when Clarice proposes the deal to Hannibal she is unaware that it is a trick. They do this because they know Hannibal would be able to tell if she was lying. A deal such as the one they were offering him is also unrealistic. He is extremely dangerous and by the sounds of things he has already proved what he will do when givin even a little freedom.

Hannibal Lecter is a very intelligent man. I think this movie portrays profilers as being extremely intelligent people. Of course profilers can be intelligent people but they do not need to be as intelligent as Hannibal.

Some of the techniques we read about in the book are used in this film. For instance, geographical profiling is definitely present. Starling and her co-workers mpa out the locations of the bodies and where they girls are originally from. They use this information to try to pinpoint where the killer could be from. Hannibal Lecter is the one that points out that the first victim is probably somebody he saw everyday. This led starling straight to the serial killers house. She also uses facts of the crime to create a profile. She notices that he would need privacy while the victims were alive, meaning he would live in a house rather than an apartment. She also makes the assumption that he is a white male because serial killers usually kill within their own race.

The first primary example of profiling took place when they were deciding who would be assigned to Lector. Lector is one sly snake of a guy who is easily angered. Clarice was a perfect fit because she was so unassuming and rather polite actually. She spoke to Lector in a respectful manner and I think that may be one reason why he eventually threw her a bone. She was also quiet and calm, something that was necessary to keep the Dr. from flying off the handle.

The next key example of profiling I noticed took place in a conversation between Clarice and Crawford. Although Clarice is able to pinpoint numerous mental and physical characteristics based on evidence from the crime scene, the investigation at this point is going nowhere. I also noticed another bit of profiling from Clarice when she notes that "most serial killers keep trophies."

Hannibal Lector is a clever devil of a man who is profiling absolutely everyone he talks to throughout the movie. He also provides Clarice with critical information that eventually leads to the capture of Gumb. The critical information I speak of comes from Lector's own profiling he has done of Gumb.

Geographic profiling is used to great extent in the investigation. Both the locations of the kidnappings and where the bodies were found would help lead investigators to the possible areas where the attacker may be residing.

I never realized so much could be learned about psychology in such a sick (but good) movie that I only remembered for its gore. This was the first movie my parents forbade me to see as a kid for good reason. However, I've realized that I can better appreciate certain elements of this film with psychology in mind.

2/21/12
Silence of the Lambs

While watching this movie I noticed several ways that profiling was used. The first form of profiling came when Clarice was chosen to interview Dr. Lector. She was chosen while she was still a student. She should not have been considered to work in such a serious assignment/case. She had to have certain known qualities that made her ‘standout’ or work well for this case.
In the beginning Clarice visits Lector in prison and has conversations with him. In these instances it seems like Clarice is assigned to talk to (maybe somewhat profile) Hannibal Lector. She is also trying to work with Lector in order to gain information about the serial killer Buffalo Bill. In order to complete this profile they are collecting information about this man. It is inaccurate to say that they found him based on his profile though. Clarice and the other officers were trying to get the information out of Lector – information that he knew about Buffalo Bill. They asked for his physical description and last known address; they did not ask about his habits, personality, possible motives etc. Even when they were questioning Lector (Buffalo Bill’s former patient) there were questions about the killer’s whereabouts, name, address, etc. It did not seem like they were trying to build a profile of this individual. Only toward the end where Clarice found the connection between the first victim and Buffalo Bill did there start to be hints at his M. O. specifically when she finds the dress with the pattern that matches the most recent parts of the victim’s body that has been cut.
There was some profiling of Buffalo Bill’s victims. They knew that they were all bigger women. And once it is realized that this man was making a dress out of their skin they were able to figure out why pieces of their skin was being shaved or cut off. But, again, this profiling does not hint at why specific women were being chosen.
I think the areas that had the most successful profiles where when they were describing the already incarcerated Lector; also when Lector was discussed a profile of Clarice. When Clarice was supposed to start interviewing / having discussions with Lector she was informed of his past behavior both inside and outside of incarceration. Then she was instructed how to approach him and what topics were safe to discuss. They had his profile very detailed to the point where they knew the safest way to interact with him (until he escaped… not the right way to interact). I think that Lector’s questions and suggestions were not terribly far-fetched. The profile he was building about Clarice was probably the most accurate of any portrayed in this film. Then again he was supposed of have been a brilliant man in psychology so his interviewing tactics should be more accurate in that regard.
The last profile that I noticed while watching this film was the profile I was making about the director or writer of this story/novel. I was using the information that I gathered based on the characters and their disposition. I noticed that most of the strong roles were played by women in this field. The main character, Clarice, was a strong independent woman who was also very smart and driven. Then the senator whose daughter gets kidnapped and held hostage (to be murdered) is also a woman. I also noticed that one of the cops (at Lector’s second jail/prison location) that was very astute, noticed details, survived, was also a woman.
In the end this movie was a lot better than I had anticipated. I knew from the start that it was going to be pretty gross and somewhat scary. I was thinking that it would nightmare-worthy, but it more of a mind-thrill. I enjoyed this movie despite the inaccuracies of their psychological applications and interpretations.

The movie introduces profiling a number of times in a couple different ways. The very first subtle case of profiling done is when the FBI selected Starling to talk to Hannibal because she was someone he would find attractive. This also includes a bit of social psychology about attraction. People are more likely to trust and speak to people they find attractive.
In a second instance, Starling is asked to create a profile of the killer "Buffalo Bill." Starling was able to spout out details about the killer, which we find out were completely correct. I feel like this is an inaccurate depiction of profiling. I think it would take much longer and a lot more research into a suspect for an officer to be able to correctly profile a suspect. I also don't think any profile would have been able to be that specific without having any errors.
The FBI also have a map that shows where every body was found as well as where each girl was taken from. This seemed like a low-tech version of geographical profiling, thought that might have been all that was available in 1991 when the movie was made. This seemed to be depicted accurately and logically, since I think in the case of a serial killer, their patterns and signatures would be recorded and tracked.
Hannibal himself was also a very good profiler. He could tell a lot about a person just by looking at them as well as by what they told and did not tell him. In one scene, he is able to give a perfect description of the serial killer to the Senator. He was a genius and trained in psychiatry. Because of his clues, Starling is able to trace the serial killer and find the Senator's daughter. I feel like Dr. Lecter's intuitive abilities were also exaggerated in order to make him a more interesting and formidable bad guy.
I also think that the movie is inaccurate in portraying how the FBI would solve a crime. First of all, there is no way that an untrained student at the academy would be put on such a high profile case. Also, the movie greatly overestimates the amount of knowledge in the FBI about profiling since the book told us only about a dozen officers in the FBI are trained in the area. This movie made it seem like something that all students learned.
Overall, the movie was very entertaining and exceedingly creepy, but I don't think it was an accurate depiction of FBI work or profiling. The movie didn't show any of the=flaws involved with profiling, like stereotyping or tunnel vision. They only highlighted the individual brilliance of Starling and Hannibal, when in real life, solving such a case would take a team of several very talented agents.

When I first read about this assignment and learned that we had to watch Silence of the Lambs, I was a little scared. I don't do well with scary movies so I was pretty hesitant! While watching the movie I was surprised because it wasn't as bad as what I thought it was going to be.

Starling gathers information and creates a profile to catch Buffalo Bill. The profile that was put together was pretty accurate; it says that it was a white male, in his 30's or 40's, strong, and precise with his work because he is getting what he wants with each girl that he's killing. She also believes that he lives alone because he needs his own work environment in order to keep his victims alive for a few days and to cut their skin off of them. He needs his privacy to kill them and to make sure no one finds him. Lecter's help with the profile was very helpful and informing. Lecter believed that Bill was a transsexual because he was uncomfortable with his identity.

I thought this movie did a very good job at describing how profiles work, but I also thought it was misleading. The movie depicts the FBI agent as the leading role of the investigation but there are alot more people that work on a case. I didn't think it was a bad movie but i thought they could have made the situations a little more realistic.

Profiling is a key component in Silence of the Lambs. The first time it is used was Agent Starling discusses Buffalo Bill with Hannibal Lector. She talked about how he took off the skins for excitement. She came to this assumption through her own inferences. This was discussed in the book, it stated investigators use the evidence they are given to make inferences of serial killers.

After this Hannibal profiled Agent Starling. He talked about her appearance, saying by the type of clothes she was wearing he made inferences about her past. He assumed what her past problems were and what led to her becoming a cop. His assumptions were true. I think this scene was protrayed accurately because Hannibal used his own knowledge to make educated assumptions on Clarice's life. He keeps profiling her throughout the movie as he gets to know more about her life. I think this is protrayed decent and semiaccurately because he could create more infereneces about her life as he learns more about her.

One of the biggest uses of profiling in the movie was when the director asks Agent Starling to profile Buffalo Bill in the car. He shows her pictures, maps, and gives her background on the killer. She profiles buffalo bill, she said he was a white male, has great strength, has his own place, 30 to 40 years old, and she thinks he will never stop. I believe this scene was done very accuratelty because Agent Starling was a good profiler for the FBI, and she accurately described buffalo bill. She made inferences about his life based on how he commited the crime, and the lifestyle he must have to be able to commit such crimes. I noticed some of the characteristics she stated were common characteristics of serial killers. This was in the chapter about profiling.

I think when Hannibal profiled Buffalo Bill, some of his assumptions were not realistic in real life. For example, when he came up with the conclusion about his transsexuality. I don't think someone could come up with this assumption without knowing more information about the serial killer.

Geographical profiling was also used in this movie. I think it was used accurately because the FBI tries to use the location of the victims to try and locate the serial killer. At first they thought it was just random, but the victim he knew was weighted down and they believed "what we know covets". This is what lead Clarice to find the home of Buffalo Bill. I think this scene is how a FBI investigator would go about trying to find the location of a serial killer.

There were other parts of the movie that were connected to the chapter about profiling. The biggest thing I caught on to was the type of kiler Buffalo Bill was. He took the time to stalk and to learn things about his victims. Also he kept the victims for a longer period of time, and the crime was more personal. This all ties into him being an organized killer because he takes the time to plan out who his victim is going to be, and what he is going to do to them.

Silence of the Lambs is a perfect media portrayal of criminal profiling. To begin, profiling began in Quantico, Virginia, a main scene in the movie! There are accuracies as well as inconsistencies about profiling when compared to our text. Clarice is taken out of her FBI training to interview Hannibal Lecter because she is a young and attractive looking woman so they probably believe that she will get more information out of him. He became so seemingly interested in her child-hood life and trauma that to me it seemed like a set-back when trying to obtain information in a timely manner because she was getting interrogated while trying to interrogate.
A lot can be (has been and is currently) learned from serial killers who have been caught. The FBI uses them to study to learn more about serial killers they have not caught yet. That is why Dr. Lecter is questioned. He is able to help with this particular case he was one of Buffalo Bill’s victim’s psychiatrist.
On the drive to go see one of Buffalo Bill’s victims, Clarice is able to create a profile in a very short amount of time by simply glancing at photographs. I thought this was a very inaccurate portrayal of profiling because it made it look like a simple task that could be done quickly by simply looking at a few shreds of evidence. In reality, I believe that geographic profiling—when key locations are associated with serial crimes based on a variety of factors such as if bodies have been found there before, eye-witness’ claims, and if it is within a geographic comfort zone of a suspected serial killer—was the key to finding Buffalo Bill in the end. The movie still has not changed my perception on profiling just because they made it seem so easy and accurate too often. But I don’t think there could have been any better movie to watch for our blog this week. It is a lot more interesting to rewatch a movie you have seen before after you have gained the knowledge behind the core concept of the film.

Sorry this is late, I was thinking it was due tonight.

One of the best examples of profiling i think the movie shows is when Agent Starling is in the car with another profiler and he asks her to identify things about the perp. She goes to say how he is a white male because his victims are white, hes in his 30s or 40s because hes mature enough to take his time and has things planned out, hes fit because he over powers his heavier victims and he has his own home because what he does takes time. This scene displays how perp profiles are created pretty well. It shows how profilers take every little piece of the crime and find a way to apply it to the perp.

Another good example of profiling is when Starling and her friend are looking at the map of where the victims were from. They discussed how no computer could find a mathematical connection between all the murders and their locations. Starling has to use her intelligence to figure out what the connection is. She also uses the clues that Hannibal gave to her. This was an example of geographic profiling.

I also like that fact that it shows how police can work with convicted criminals to create profiles and find out more about wanted criminals. The use convicts to help create profiles. I think they do this because criminals tend to think alike and who would know better about how a criminal thinks than someone who does the same thing. It would be hard for someone who has never had a murderous thought to understand fully what goes through the mind of a criminal.

Not only did Hannibal help create a profile for Buffalo Bill, he also created his own profile for Starling and the senator. He was always asking starling questions about herself and making inferences from those questions. He did wrongly profile her thought. He guessed on what occupation Starlings dad had, he seemed very confident about it and when on and on about it, but it turned out that her dad was a cop and that was how he died and Starlings ended up orphaned. He told the profile he had created for the senator when they met to discuss Buffalo Bill. His profiling was very odd and disturbing, but from the way the movied portrays it he was pretty accurate in his profiling.

I think the movie did an OK job of displaying profiling. It got the basics out, but once again its media. It makes things seem simpler than they are. This was way more accurate then TV shows like CSI thought. They show Starlings troubles with getting cooperation from Hannibal, and also how she has trouble locating Buffalo Bill. As with all TV things, they need to keep an audience interested and I think if there were to show a real step by step profilng it wouldnt be a very successful movie.