Conflict Theory In The Movie 'The Heat'

The movie The Heat is about two women who are both cops who have problems dealing with work and family. The first woman is FBI Special Agent Sarah Ashburn. Ashburn is a very skilled agent who has a reputation for being the best but, she is considered arrogant and condescending by her coworkers. She is a goody two shoes that always goes strictly by the book, and never does anything wrong. While on the other hand, you have Detective Shannon Mullins. Mullins is a smart yet rebellious detective, who is considered a hot tempered potty mouth and a bully to her coworkers. She uses her gut instincts and common knowledge to bring in criminals off the streets. In the movie, the two must team up to catch a drug lord who stops at nothing to get what …show more content…
Conflict theory is a theory by Karl Marx that claims that society is in a state of perpetual conflict due to competition for limited resources. The main ideas of conflict theory are it focuses on how resources, power, and inequality is distributed amongst people. Furthermore, it explains social change and how it is affected. The first example in the movie of conflict theory is between Ashburn and Mullins. When they first meet, they are arguing about who will finish interrogating one of the criminals and about who will handle the big case the criminal is involved in. The conflict between the two deals with both resources and power. They both want to take the case over and use the criminal for intel, but they don’t want to work together on the case. The next example is between Mullins and her family. Her family resents her and talks negatively about her because she put her brother in jail. Mullins put her brother in jail to stop him from using drugs, selling drugs, and dealing with a lot of criminal people. The conflict between Mullins and her family is power. Moreover, because she used her power as a police to send her brother to jail for his own good, her family considers her a traitor and a