THE COMMENTATOR NINA FUNNELL
We hear constantly that female pop stars are bad influences on girls because their clips are much too sexy. But too sexy for whom, exactly?
Watching heavily made-up women squeeze into constricting outfits and punishing high heels, gyrating back and forth with a feigned "come-hither" smile may be alluring to some, but for others it just looks like exhausting work.
Far from being too sexual, today's video clips rarely offer anything other than a contrived, heavily choreographed and manufactured version of a hollow, one-dimensional sexuality. The problem is not that clips are too sexy but that their narrow take on female sexuality is much too prescriptive.
Is Lady Gaga another symptom of raunch culture or does she represent a challenge to it?
Gaga shares with many of her contemporaries a penchant for leotards and towering high heels. But one of the things that make her so interesting is that her camp fashion statements can be read as a subversive comment on female sexualisation just as much as a manifestation of it.
Unlike the saccharine femininity of Taylor Swift, the carefully scripted ''bad girl'' rebellion of Pink and Avril Lavigne or the faux lesbianism of Katy "I kissed a girl" Perry, Lady Gaga borrows more from the conventions of drag queen culture than those associated with traditional female archetypes.
She looks more at home on a Mardi Gras float than a pole-dancing stage. She is constantly ''queering'' herself by acting outside mainstream fashion and cultural politics, then smiling back at them. Her public support of gay marriage, her self-referential gender identity play and her satirical, camp music have made her one of the world's most recognisable gay icons.
Media commentators are frequently guilty of assuming that everyone sees the world through the same lens as they do. So while cultural studies scholars may read Gaga as a postmodern statement on queer and identity politics, there is no reason to assume teenage girls do so.
Then again, it's also patronising to assume teenage girls engage with culture only at the most literal, superficial and sexualised level.
Regardless of whether you see her as a pornified sex symbol, a tongue-in-cheek gay icon or anything else, Gaga is so jarringly alternative that girls are more likely to view her as a source of fascination than as a role model.
Nina Funnell is a social commentator and writer.THE ACTIVIST MELINDA TANKARD REIST
When Lady Gaga toured here last year with Monster Ball, young girls were treated to a video clip of the star being vomited on and greedily eating something akin to a human heart. Her face and body were covered in blood.
The same girls saw highly sexualised and porn-themed dance routines.
Gaga's young audience picked up all the information they needed about tour dates and tickets from articles such as ''Lady Gaga: Ooh la la! Cool concerts'' in Girlpower magazine - aimed at girls aged between seven and 13. Moshi Monsters, lip gloss, toys, puzzles - and Lady Gaga - all in the one issue.
The Lady Gaga juggernaut was again marketed to young girls this visit, with competitions to be in Wednesday night's ''Monster Hall'' audience and her "Little Monsters", as she called them, dressed in Gaga garb and performed Gaga dance routines for the cameras in Sydney streets during the day.
Viewing her music video clips, girls are exposed to sadomasochistic sexual fantasies, simulated sex acts and more phallic symbols than can be counted. In Telephone, they see Gaga stripped and thrown naked against prison bars, girl-on-girl violence as a fellow inmate is kicked in the head with stiletto heels, and Gaga and Beyonce drive off in their "Pussy Wagon".
Lady Gaga contributes to a broader cultural story being read by young people every day. They observe a script loaded with eroticised violence, themes inspired by the sex industry, lyrics celebrating the debasement and degradation of women.
Girls are taught their value lies in baring their flesh: that attention and social cachet are achieved through exhibitionism. Liberation is about taking a ride on a disco stick, sucking on anything resembling the male organ and offering yourself as a sexual service station for boys and men.
While Lady Gaga is described as avant-garde and counter-cultural, really she is none of these things. She is further entrenching stereotypes about women and sexuality.
Dyed hair, crazy costumes, pornographic accoutrements, pelvic thrusting and grinding do not a revolution make. Little girls need a lot more than a musical porn peep show to understand this.
Melinda Tankard Reist is an author, speaker, media commentator and founder of ''Collective Shout: for a world free of sexploitation''.THE TEENAGER JULIA READETT
To the naked eye, Lady Gaga is just another pop sensation saturated in money, sequins and glamour, her image fuelled by today's penetrative pop culture.
It would be hard to envisage this controversial character as an idol, but she is refreshingly creative, talented and unconventionally emotive, and fulfils the prerequisites of a good role model. She preaches originality and advocates individualism.
My role models are getting on in years: Patti Smith, Bruce Springsteen and Kim Deal are veterans of the music world, which serves as an indication that good role models are in short supply.
Lady Gaga communicates messages of self-acceptance exemplified by her self-affirming choruses - ''Baby, I was born this way''. They serve as a refrain of personal and emotional liberation, not only for the childhood bullying victim herself, but for girls struggling with insecurities.
In this YouTube era of rapid fame, the term ''pop star'' has shifted to represent the seemingly intrinsic nature of drugs and sex found in Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan, or bubble-gum avatars such as Justin Bieber and the Jonas Brothers. These are the good guys of pop, the personification of decency; celibate, polite and ''good role models''.
What makes Lady Gaga illuminating is her place in the revolution of pop music. It is more than two decades since Madonna, Debbie Harry and Grace Jones revolutionised the genre, so why not let this quirky character have a turn? Revolutions aside, this woman is clearly an individual; I would not discourage my sisters or friends from looking up to someone who, for lack of a better cliche, is herself.
Gaga's Wikipedia page reveals a litany of ''occupations'', affirming a chameleonic nature that extends beyond the stage. It says she is a singer-songwriter, performance artist, record producer, dancer, businesswoman and activist.
The last two may provoke a raised eyebrow, but her support of homosexual, bisexual and transgender communities earned the recognition of Clover Moore as an honorary citizen of Sydney. Moral courage, creativity, individuality: tick.
Julia Readett is a year 12 student.THE CHRISTIAN DARLENE ZSCHECH
As a creative force and entertainer, Lady Gaga is completely dynamic, and you cannot deny her innovative approach to all she is contributing to the sound and shape of music globally.
I am unsure whether she ever wanted to be a role model. More often than not, women with her influence through artistry on many levels started out just wanting to break free of other constraints. Then they find themselves as a voice helping shape the marketplace and our culture by default.
To be honest, my heart goes out to her, as she is often quoted as saying she is a very lonely, misunderstood person.
As a woman in the public arena, she has modelled a ''can do'' attitude and works incredibly hard. She has got in front of her own life and, in her own interesting way, has created a space for herself to occupy. So on that front, she has done well, better than settling underneath a glass ceiling created by others.
Some aspects of the way she carries herself physically are amusing, some are simply weird (such as the meat dress), but as a wife, and mother of three daughters, I find the way she handles and portrays her own sexuality improper, distasteful and simply unnecessary.
I and my eldest daughters find much of her music video content disturbing, and these examples should never be held up as reputable or even as a standard for this very young and impressionable media-savvy generation.
Some of the photographs available and presented to the public are upsetting, and therefore I do not consider her role in this light to be one of a healthy model.
Every woman, young and old, needs to be celebrated for who they are, without the pressure of living up to some sort of shallow take on beauty, sexuality and a misguided understanding of what a successful life truly looks like.
Gaga - genius, tender-hearted, creative revolutionary? Yes. Balanced role model? No.
Darlene Zschech is a pastor of worship at HopeUC Australian Christian Churches. She contributed to Hillsong's God Is Able, currently two places above Lady Gaga in the ARIA album chart.
