Madonna has done more for society than create best-selling albums.

She has also confronted gender stereotypes by constantly pushing the limits of what society accepts as normal sex roles, a feminist critic of films and MTV said.

E. Anne Kaplan, director of the Humanities Institute at State University of New York at Stony Brook, used Madonna as an example of how images of women are changing in film and music videos. She spoke to a packed 101 Kern last night on "Images of Sexuality in Recent Films and MTV."

"I am deliberately ambivalent about Madonna," Kaplan said.

On the one hand, Kaplan admired Madonna's gutsiness, saying, "She is courageous and makes culture confront gender stereotypes." But she also said Madonna was very narcissistic and would exploit fans to enhance her image and marketability.

"Madonna is clearly a self-conscious and clever marketer of her image," Kaplan said.

Lynette Mason (sophomore-international politics) and several other audience members questioned whether Madonna truly opposes gender stereotypes or just uses her scandalous image as a marketing ploy.

"In terms of whether she's mastering her feminism, I think maybe she's not mastering so much as capitalizing on her image. But then maybe that's a form of mastery itself," Mason said.

Kaplan said Madonna clearly tackles issues of gender and social oppression to benefit society.

One of the gender issues Madonna attacks is the issue of women's sexuality. While defending her sexually open video "Justify My Love" on Nightline, Madonna said the reasons critics were outraged by her video is because society is afraid of sex, especially women's sexuality.

She also pointed out that society is willing to show violence and degradation, especially towards women, on television and in films, but has problems openly dealing with sex.