Introduction
Moneyball is a movie based on Oakland Athletic, a baseball team. The story revolves around manager, Billy Beane in his quest to bring together a competitive team. Billy Beane comes up with a new model, known as sabermetrics, which uses number analytics to scout for players. In his attempt to integrate his methods into the team, he faces has to overcome different types of conflicts. In a nutshell, Moneyball is about bringing about change and the conflicts that ensue when new thinking strives to replace old thinking. This paper defines the types and levels of conflict and how they may be applied to the movie Moneyball.
The notion of conflict is basic to understanding and appreciation of human action. It may be treated widely as a philosophical issue which denotes a clash of power between forces. Conflict also lends itself to categorization under social behavior where in this sense it may be the result of two parties who seek to attain something that both of them cannot have. There are three main types of conflict and three levels of conflict. The three types of conflict are person against self, person against the society and person against nature. The three levels of conflict are intrapersonal, interpersonal and intragroup conflict. The first level of conflict which is evident in this movie is intrapersonal conflict. Intrapersonal conflict happens within an individual. This conflict happens when the person is drawn to act, feel or think in a manner that is not usual for them. Billy Beane is a former baseball player, straight from high school who has never won any major accolade as a player. The movie is a narrative of his personal conflict within himself to succeed. His whole demeanor in the film underlines his inner travails and shortcomings. His relationship with his wife has also fallen apart. Despite his inner belief in succeeding, he sometimes has negative thoughts which he has to overcome so as to succeed. The movie shows his attempt to overcome an internal conflict and prove his self-worth. This is the intrapersonal level of conflict.
The second level of conflict is the interpersonal conflict. This is the lack of consensus between a person and another party. Billy Beane and the Oakland team manager do not agree on the player selection methods. He faces the huge task of proving to him that his model of sabermetrics can help them pick an excellent team with their low resource pool. An example of the interpersonal conflict is that between Beane and Art Howe, the team manager. Beane is at pains to explain his tactics to Art Howe, who is used to the old model of scouting and managing players (Moneyball n.p).
The third level of conflict in Moneyball is the intragroup conflict. Intragroup conflict occurs when members of a group do not agree on issues. It may result from inadequate resources of breakdown in communication. This kind of conflict arises in the film whereby Beane and Brand fail to agree with the group of veteran scouts on player selection (Moneyball n.p). This is specifically shown in the scene where he tells the scouts that he is going to hire the undervalued players who, despite being overlooked, have commendable base-percentage figures.
Conclusion
The film Moneyball exposes the three levels of conflict that exist. These are intrapersonal, interpersonal and intragroup conflict. The central theme of conflict is best examined from analyzing the protagonist, Billy Beane and his attempts to bring change in the Oakland As baseball team.
Work cited
Moneyball. Dir. Bennett Miller. Perf. Brad Pitt. Columbia Pictures, 2011. DVD.
