Researching Sex and the Cinema in the #MeToo Age

This introduction to the Film Studies special issue on Sex and the Cinema considers the special place of sex as an object of inquiry in !lm studies. Providing an overview of three major topic approaches and methodologies – (1) representation, spectatorship and identity politics; (2) the increasing scrutiny of pornography; and (3) new cinema history/media industries studies – this piece argues that the parameters of and changes to the research of sex, broadly de!ned, in !lm studies re"ect the development of the !eld and discipline since the 1970s, including the increased focus on putatively ‘low’ cultural forms, on areas of !lm culture beyond representation and on methods beyond textual/formal analysis.