Lady Gaga Branded ‘Pornographic’ As Star Plays Debut Show In South Korea

Lady Gaga has been described as “pornographic” by the leader of protests against the singer in South Korea.

As the hitmaker started the Asian leg of her ‘Born This Way’ tour in Seoul, playing in front of 45,000 fans in the city’s Olympic Stadium on Friday, Conservative Christian groups demonstrated outside. Protest leader Rev. Yoon Jung-hoon told Reuters:

“Some people can accept this as another culture, but its impact is huge beyond art and debases religions. Even adults can’t see her performance, which is too homosexual and pornographic.”

On Friday evening, Yoon was present at Seoul’s Olympic Stadium with his friends from the catchily-named Civilians Network against the Lady Gaga Concert. As fans lined up to get inside, the group waved placards and called on Gaga to cancel her appearance. Yoon said he would attend the concert to monitor its content.

While a complete cancellation was never going to happen at that stage, the protestors, who have been carrying out their campaign for some time, have seen some success: bowing to pressure generated by the protests, South Korea’s government had already banned fans under the age of 18 from attending the concert.

The root of the problem isn’t so much Gaga’s occasionally revealing stage outfits, but her open stance of empowering gay men and women, as seen in songs such as ‘Born This Way,’ and the work she carries out through her foundation.

Many in South Korea, a nation with 14 million Christians, still view homosexuality as immoral. And if Gaga thought things were going to calm down for the rest of her tour, she may be sorely mistaken: her upcoming shows in Hong Kong, Taipei, Manila, Singapore and Jakarta have all been met with varying degrees of protest from locals.