''180'' (also known as ''180: Changing the Heart of a Nation'' or ''180 Movie'') is a 2011 American
anti-abortion
Anti-abortion movements, also self-styled as pro-life or abolitionist movements, are involved in the abortion debate advocating against the practice of abortion and its legality. Many anti-abortion movements began as countermovements in respons ...
documentary short film
A short film is any motion picture that is short enough in running time not to be considered a feature film. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences defines a short film as "an original motion picture that has a running time of 40 minutes ...
produced by New Zealand evangelist
Ray Comfort
Ray Comfort (born 5 December 1949) is a New Zealand-born Christian minister and Evangelism, evangelist who lives in the United States. Comfort started Living Waters Publications, as well as the ministry ''The Way of the Master'', in Bellflower, ...
, founder of
Living Waters Publications
The Way of the Master (WOTM) is a United States-based Christian evangelism ministry, founded in 2002 and headed by New Zealand-born evangelist Ray Comfort, American former child actor Kirk Cameron and American radio host Todd Friel. The organizat ...
.
The film is self-distributed by Living Waters on
DVD
The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kin ...
and has been posted publicly on the group's official website and channel. The film is notable for comparing abortions to the
Holocaust
The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; a ...
.
Synopsis
The film begins by showing images of the
Holocaust
The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; a ...
, and stating that
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his death in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the le ...
sanctioned the killing of 11 million people. This is followed by Comfort interviewing people about Hitler; their responses indicate a lack of historical knowledge, although he also finds a neo-Nazi who says he loves Hitler. Comfort proposes a hypothetical situation to his interviewees, asking if they would kill Hitler if they had the opportunity at that time in history. He asks more hypotheticals dealing with what his interviewees might do in other circumstances related to the Holocaust.
He then switches his topic to make similar comparisons to abortion within the United States and the
right to life
The right to life is the belief that a being has the right to live and, in particular, should not be killed by another entity. The concept of a right to life arises in debates on issues including capital punishment, with some people seeing it as ...
.
The documentary concludes with Comfort stating that over 50 million abortions have occurred to date; he calls this the "American Holocaust".
Background
The documentary was originally intended to be a free DVD supplement to Comfort's book ''Hitler, God, and the Bible''.
Comfort compared his film to the YouTube video ''
Charlie Bit My Finger
"Charlie bit my finger - again !", more simply known as "Charlie Bit My Finger" or "Charlie Bit Me", was a 2007 internet viral video famous for being at the time the most viewed YouTube video. As of October 2022, the video received ov ...
'', which had accumulated millions of views, and offered his hope that ''180'' would achieve the same viewership and thus serve to shift opinion on abortion.
Reception
Within days, ''180'' had over half a million views on YouTube, while weeks later, it hit the 1.2 million mark.
On October 12, 2011, ''
The Huffington Post
''HuffPost'' (formerly ''The Huffington Post'' until 2017 and sometimes abbreviated ''HuffPo'') is an American progressive news website, with localized and international editions. The site offers news, satire, blogs, and original content, and ...
'' wrote an article critical of ''180''. The article quoted Holocaust survivor
Elie Wiesel
Elie Wiesel (, born Eliezer Wiesel ''Eliezer Vizel''; September 30, 1928 – July 2, 2016) was a Romanian-born American writer, professor, political activist, Nobel Peace Prize, Nobel laureate, and Holocaust survivor. He authored Elie Wiesel b ...
, who said in a 1991 interview with ''On The Issues'' Magazine, "It is blasphemy to reduce a tragedy of such monumental proportions to this human tragedy, and abortion is a human tragedy."
According to ''The Huffington Post'', "the film, which shows a series of graphic images, is gaining attention not only because of its controversial comparison, but because it highlights 14 people who do not know who Adolf Hitler was".
''
The Christian Examiner
''The Christian Examiner'' was an American periodical published between 1813 and 1869.
History and profile
Founded in 1813 as ''The Christian Disciple'', it was purchased in 1814 by Nathan Hale. His son Edward Everett Hale later oversaw publicati ...
'' called the film "dramatic" and stated that it was "gaining national attention". It reported on Ray Comfort's use of "morally charged" questions and his attempts to change the minds of "mostly college-aged" interviewees, and how eight of those interviewed who previously espoused a pro-choice view changed their minds as a result of the interview.
British newspaper ''
The Catholic Herald
The ''Catholic Herald'' is a London-based Roman Catholic monthly newspaper and starting December 2014 a magazine, published in the United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland and, formerly, the United States. It reports a total circulation of abo ...
'' criticised the film for bludgeoning and hectoring its subjects and audience and using "verbal violence" when love was the better way to change people's minds; however it also found that many of its readers agreed with the film's message and tactics.
The
Anti-Defamation League
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL), formerly known as the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith, is an international Jewish non-governmental organization based in the United States specializing in civil rights law. It was founded in late Septe ...
criticized the film for equating the
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
murder of
Jew
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""Th ...
s during the Holocaust to abortion in the United States and called it "cynical and perverse". It criticized the film's use of images of bodies in
concentration camp
Internment is the imprisonment of people, commonly in large groups, without charges or intent to file charges. The term is especially used for the confinement "of enemy citizens in wartime or of terrorism suspects". Thus, while it can simply ...
s and Jews being shot and in mass graves intercut with segments of people offering opinions about the Holocaust and abortion. It also challenged Comfort's method of critically questioning those interviewees who spoke negatively about Hitler and yet were more liberal in the views about abortion and women's right to choose.
Abraham H. Foxman, the national director of the
ADL
Adl ( ar, عدل, ) is an Arabic word meaning 'justice', and is also one of the names of God in Islam. It is equal to the concept of ''Insaf'' انصاف (lit. sense of justice) in the Baháʼí Faith.
Adil ( ar, عادل, ), and Adeel ( ar, ...
and himself a Holocaust survivor, criticized the film, stating "This film is a perverse attempt to make a case against abortion in America through the cynical abuse of the memory of those killed in the Holocaust," adding "It is, quite frankly, one of the most offensive and outrageous abuses of the memory of the Holocaust we have seen in years." He decried the film's assertion that there is somehow "a moral equivalency between the Holocaust and abortion" and its bringing Jews and Jewish history into a discussion that then urges viewers to "repent and accept Jesus as their savior."
''
The Florida Independent'' reported that Ray Comfort is "turning his attention to high schools" in order to "fill in gaps in education about the Holocaust". It reports the film as "largely anti-abortion propaganda" which has "become extremely popular in
anti-abortion
Anti-abortion movements, also self-styled as pro-life or abolitionist movements, are involved in the abortion debate advocating against the practice of abortion and its legality. Many anti-abortion movements began as countermovements in respons ...
circles".
The makers also had trouble with some
billboard
A billboard (also called a hoarding in the UK and many other parts of the world) is a large outdoor advertising structure (a billing board), typically found in high-traffic areas such as alongside busy roads. Billboards present large advertise ...
owners who refused to carry advertising for the film, with Comfort complaining one Jewish company owner was particularly opposed. Comfort also said "three of the largest billboard companies in Southern California" refused to advertise it.
In 2015, a woman from the United Kingdom was dismissed from a Christian school and then contacted by
Child Protective Services for showing the film to her own children.
Release
The documentary was produced by Ray Comfort with the help of his ministry,
Living Waters Publications
The Way of the Master (WOTM) is a United States-based Christian evangelism ministry, founded in 2002 and headed by New Zealand-born evangelist Ray Comfort, American former child actor Kirk Cameron and American radio host Todd Friel. The organizat ...
. It was released on Sunday, September 18, 2011. As of November 4, 2011, the film had received over 1 million views on its official website.
References
External links
*
*{{IMDb title, id=2734180, title=180
Living Waters Publications
2011 films
Documentary films about abortion
Anti-abortion movement
American propaganda films
Nazi analogies
American short documentary films
2010s English-language films
2010s American films