The New Republic’s Chris Orr is one of the country’s better film critics. Like all great critics, he’s always readable and insightful, and he’s the best in the business at succinctly capturing the essence of a film. So it’s no surprise that Orr has one of the most level-headed takes on the movies-and-abortion brouhaha that Greg noted a few days ago:

As a liberal who writes about film, there are few things that I find more irritating than the tendency of other liberal film writers to treat the 95 percent of Hollywood films that push (explicitly or implicitly) liberal ideas as if they were utterly apolitical and commonsensical, and then react with shock and despair on those rare occasions when a movie with conservative themes makes its way to theaters.
Yes, in two recent films, Waitress and Knocked Up, a woman whom we might otherwise expect to consider abortion instead opts to have the baby. (Isn’t it supposed to take three examples to establish a trend?) And yes, of course, Hollywood would prefer not to talk about abortion at all, as it’s a subject generally not known for its entertainment value.
But do we really need successive articles in Slate and The New York Times positing some conservative climate of fear in Hollywood?

The whole thing is worth reading. Ross Douthat responded to the Slate piece here and here.