The Fall of Man

    Maria Elena Buszek makes the argument that the pin-up, while it can be sexually explicit, is not necessarily a means to repress women as it often actually liberates them to break away from the stereotypical ideal woman and reclaim a sense of power. For Buszek, the pin-up is a form of "awareishness" as it attempts to help women of every part of life. The art works for the New Woman, flappers, and suffragettes, as well as housewives and the government by increasing numbers of women volunteering. As such, Varga, the pin-up artist Buszek focuses most of her energy on, creates images as enticing but not inviting, which work as an opening to making women erotic subjects, as opposed to mere erotic objects, thus assisting women in their work to regain power over themselves (Lecture 3). However, not all of Varga's images serve feminist agendas. While they have an affective aspect, in which they create planned emotions, they also have unplanned reactions. As they shock the status quo, they also become potentially harmful, particularly to women who become affected by the monster beauty present in the images. Regardless of the aim to embrace different "types" of the Ideal Woman, pin-ups essentially work as an oxymoron—their attempts at using sexuality as a kind of power meant to regain autonomy and create environments of equity and equality, also depend greatly on the viewer and the gaze. A pin-up is still a pin-up, and the overall presentation is still a form of sexuality accepted by men only because it does not threaten them too much, and accepted by some women only because it does not always completely objectify them.

    Many of the images Varga created contain controversial, and debatable aspects. For example, the included Varga pin-up has Christian, and pagan, allusions present. It is incredibly suggestive of Eve—the Mother of Humanity, according to biblical references of the creation story in Genesis. Varga's Eve exists after the Fall of Man: When Adam and Eve were created, "the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed" (Genesis 2:25). It was not until after the two had eaten the fruit from the tree in the middle of the garden that they became aware of their nakedness: "[T]he eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths" (Genesis 3:7). In the pin-up, rather than being fully clothed, the woman has been strategically covered with leaves and vines, just as Genesis alludes to. However, this moment in the story is particularly interesting because God has not yet discovered what they have done. It is not until the following verse that God becomes aware of their transgression, and only in Genesis 3:21 that God makes garments for them from animal skins. Thus, Varga's Eve is in a position of sinless sin—the gravity of her actions has not yet been made clear, and she has not been burdened with being the reason behind the Fall of Man.

    Nonetheless, the gravity of the situation is not underplayed by Varga's depiction. The woman is the very image of entice but not invite as she holds the apple in her hand and motions to the viewer with her finger. Her standing position, as well as her jutted hip and semi-turned torso, imply a certain sense of an unsaid direction to "follow me [her]." The lasso in her right hand has just recently been used to hook the viewer—just as it was used to hook Adam—in order to mislead them into some kind of perceived sinful behavior. Though, again, because of the moment in history this Eve has been positioned in, the behavior would not be totally sinful, only frowned upon. In this way, Varga reflects not only on the position of the Woman in culture, but also of the Woman as seen on the pin-up. She has been given unprecedented power as she is capable of altering the very fate of humanity, and is, at the same time, rejected for holding such power.

    However, Varga has not just created a woman, he has created a goddess. The pin-up has super-ceded that of Eve clothed in fig leaves: Varga's painting depicts a golden woman. Everything—her shoes, her lasso, her hair, her apple, her vine-like coverings, her skin, her headpiece (much like a crown)—is gold. In this way, she becomes more than human but nearly becomes a statue to be worshiped. She is truly a goddess, and her attempt to become as knowledgeable as her own God in regard to good and evil only further demonstrates this. 

    A medieval expectation of knights and chivalry involved an idea referred to as fin amor, in which a woman was elevated above a man to become goddess-like, similar to Venus. The woman was never to be won over by the knight as obstacles were to continually appear and disrupt potential happiness. In fin amor, pain is the equivalent to pleasure. Varga's pin-up demonstrates this: The woman he creates is utterly unattainable both by men and by women as she does not actually exist, particularly obvious through the monster beauty she depicts. 

    Again, this points to Varga's reflection upon the Woman. While he points to the power and agency of a woman, he only points to it insomuch as it functions as power used wrongly and as a form of destruction rather than productivity and goodness. She is merely of the flesh, and not of the spirit. Varga's pin-up allures, just as the snake allured Eve into sin. It is possible then, that this Eve serves as a warning to take care in placing trust in a (potentially) promiscuous woman, but also of women in general, as they all stem from the same lineage of Eve: The cause of the Fall of Man. In her enticing, she warns the viewer to not come too close, lest Man fall yet again.

Bibliography
"Book of Genesis - ESV." Bible Study Tools, www.biblestudytools.com/esv/genesis/.
Buszek, Maria Elena. Pin-up grrrls: feminism, sexuality, popular culture. Duke University Press, 2006.
Whaley, Deborah Elizabeth. Pin Up Grrrls: Feminism, Sexuality, Popular Culture (Powerpoint: Lecture Three). 2017.