Gen 1-3, Relationships and Popular Culture

Val, Linda and Amy entertained us with a session on Gen 1-3, Relationships and Popular Culture.

Val Ziegler began with That’s SO Romantic! Adam, Eve, and the Perfect Date:

Although Genesis 2-3 never mentions romance, a long line of Christian writers since Milton have found the Adam and Eve story redolent with exciting and intense sexual love. Contemporary Evangelical writers such as Josh Harris, Tim and Beverly LeHaye, and Eric and Leslie Ludie have appealed to Genesis 1-3 as the foundation of a sexual theology that promises to provide “worship in bed,” to transform married couples into Prince and Princess Charmings, and to deliver the most satisfying (and frequent) sex on the planet. What happens when secular dating services invoke Adam and Eve as their model and offer customers romance from paradise? What kind of love can Eve and Adam provide those looking for fulfilling partners? How do cultural myths of Adam, Eve, and romantic love differ from Christian readings of Genesis 2-3? Or do they? The results may surprise you

Linda Schearing continued with Marketing Sex: Adam, Eve, and Sexploitation:

Commentators since ancient times have reflected on Adam and Eve’s nakedness (Gen 2) and the interpretive nuances of the tree of “knowledge” (Gen 3). Whereas some contemporary writers see in these elements the foundation of a romance between Adam and Eve (see Ziegler’s abstract) other popular culture voices stripped the romance from Adam and Eve in favor of a more blatant sexual interpretation. While the genres of humor and advertising, in general, have capitalized on Gen 2-3 sexual inferences, no contemporary business sector of society has exploited Gen 2-3 quite like that of the sex industry. This presentation examines what happens to Gen 2-3 when the story’s characters and their relationship become the icon for the largest and most successful adult products company in the United States—“Adam and Eve.”

Amy Merrill Willis wrapped it up with her analysis of Desperate Housewives, Desire, Desperation, and Empowerment: The Eves of Desperate Housewives:

This paper will be an exploration of one particular intersection between Genesis 2-3 and popular culture, the one offered in the popular primetime soap opera, Desperate Housewives (DH). One conventional interpretation of Eve- as the original femme fatale who tempts primal man to his downfall with her sexual wiles- sometimes appears to guide the depiction of the central female characters in DH, especially in the advertisements for commodities connected to the show. This paper will argue that the temptress is actually one of several models of female empowerment at work in the show’s ongoing narrative of four suburban housewives and their acquaintances on Wisteria Lane. This paper will explore the use of Gen 2-3 to frame the depiction of female desire and power in the show. It will argue that, rather than exhibiting a conventional reading of Eve that threatens to undermine the full humanity of all women, the program renders women as fully human as it unfolds the profound contradictions of life in an ironic Eden and various female responses to that life.