Aesthetically problematic has an ethical component (and you all know it) but it’s a distortion of a familiar work (meant to cause a response) and ethical questions of Rick Rolling or whatever you call it are less important ethically but not immaterial.

Edit: the image also steals from Mona Lisa’s mustache and DaVinci is under copyright for seven additional years.

I was mainly joking.

Although the are issues about this in a professional setting.

If you display this to a prospective client in place of Lena, they think it's unprofessional and don't employ your services, your company goes under and you lose your job, is there not an ethical component to that?

It isn't. Just like the original and the cropped version aren't ethically problematic. It was a commercial photo shoot performed under paid contract with a public magazine.