$10.00
A Butch LOOK at America Poster by Clark Henley
A rare and humorous 1982 J. Clark Henley pictorial map of the United States as a ‘butch’ alli-GAY-der paradise. The map follows on Henley’s 1976 ‘Alligator Oz’ map of San Francisco (see Geographicus: SanFranciscoAlligatorOz-henley-1976), in which he first introduced the alligator as a symbol of gay America. Here homosexual alligators, some in drag, frolic and enjoy themselves, their notably salacious thoughts on clear display – and as such is one of the few maps picturing any aspect of gay life. The map emerged during a period of LGBTQ+ awakening, after the 1969 Stonewall Riots, but before the full extent of the AIDS Epidemic became evident. It was a period of positivity and widespread expectations of emerging acceptance.
A Closer Look
The map takes the form of a pair of masculine buttocks wearing jean-shorts cut-off roughly in the shape of the United States. A handkerchief in the right pocket represents the Great Lakes and Florida is a set of keys hanging from a belt loop – both readily-recognizable signals in the gay community.
Henley takes considerable license with geography, essentially dividing the United States into east (New York) and west (California), twin meccas of 1980s American gay culture. ‘The Midwest’ is reduced to the gluteal cleft, with the Grand Canyon taking pride of place. Throughout, naked male alligators’ engage in a variety of activities, some quite raunchy. Important sites related to gay culture are noted, including the Castro, Christopher Street, Providence, Fire Island, and Santa Monica. Henley even advertises his own book, The Butch Manual, at a magazine stand near Santa Monica.
In yet another act of re-imagining, artist Henley has rendered the nation’s inhabitants as alligators, all wearing sunglasses. I am uncertain as to why he chose alligators; it must be some kind of inside joke, perhaps a reference to the alligator logo on the Lacoste shirts that were for a time “de rigueur in a portion of the gay community.” (The Washingtonian, Sept. 1980, accessed online May 2022) The explanation could also be as simple as a phonetic play on the central syllable in the word (alli-GAY-tor). In any event, the alligators are engaging in the full range of “human” activities: driving, dining, dancing, shopping, hanging out, working out, ogling one another, and occasionally having sex, often in very public spaces. None, however, appear to be working. Viewed in retrospect, the upbeat tone makes for a sad counterpoint to the emergence of the AIDs epidemic, which was first recognized as a public-health crisis in 1982, when the map was copyrighted, and which within a few years would claim the life of the mapmaker.
Clark Henley was a writer, model, and artist, born in San Francisco in 1950, where he established both his career in the 1970s. In 1976 he published Alligator Oz: Tails of the City, a map of San Francisco populated exclusively by mustachioed alligators, which clearly anticipates the Butch Look at America but is much, much raunchier. In 1979, Henley moved to Los Angeles with the ambition of further pursuing his career, and in 1982 Plume (New York) published his Butch Manual, which offers facetious advice to gay men seeking to adopt excessively masculine behavior (He designed this map to help promote the book.) After being diagnosed with HIV in 1986, he returned to his native San Francisco to live with his family, and he died there in 1988. _ Boston Rare Maps
Measures 18.75 x 27.5 inches
