Interview with Abigail Child, Director of On the Downlow

Now the way that you present yourself is something different, you may present yourself as a thug or present yourself as somebody who’s on the DL or present yourself as a drag queen, or somebody who is way out there, the way you present it, you can turn on and turn off changes, or modes or what you want it to be, but the actual feeling, NO.”

I take it that he means there is a public front that may or may not jive with the private. This is a powerful observation and in a doc, particularly relevant.

I’m interested in the front (the public) and how that is put on and what is going on in private, internally.

Q: Some authors have claimed that being on the Downlow has contributed to AIDS. What’s your take?

A: In terms of statistics: recent studies have dispelled many myths about the Downlow and controverted some of the previous published statements: a third of Downlow men identify themselves as gay; over 80 percent have links to the gay community.

A better explanation of the AIDS crisis spread among the black female population (and even this increase is debated) might be the fact that blacks disproportionately outnumber whites in prison (in Cleveland, approximately 50 percent of African-American men between the ages of 18–29 are either incarcerated or on probation)—and once they come out, they go back to their wives and girlfriends, often not telling what happened to them in prison and not using condoms at home. According to the Centers for Disease Control, one-third of young urban black men who have sex with men in this country are HIV positive and 90 percent of those are unaware of their infection.

We hear about this epidemic often in alarmist tones, but not so much about a solution. Whether the cause is DL behavior or, as is more likely, the deeper socio-political-economic facts of poverty and prison in the U.S., what has not been faced among the black community is homosexuality. Discussion has proven remarkably difficult, whether in churches, organizations, inner-city schools, or among friends.

As an increasing number of black men who have sex only with men identity themselves as DL, preferring the masculinity of the term instead of gay, there is a further complication of group identity. And as DL culture expands, it has become an open secret. For many men on the Downlow, the DL label is not only an announcement of masculinity and a separation from white gay culture; it is a kind of family to which they can belong. There is the important sense that they don’t risk losing their ties to family, friends, jobs, and black culture. As one young man maintains: “We’re black anyway, that’s one strike against us.”

Q: What are some of the challenges you face in documentary filmmaking?

A: When the camera is turned off, people change the way they use their body. They stop presenting.

I am interested in that moment when another persona comes on scene—the multiplicities of what is “truth,” the faceted nature of the real as seen from different viewpoints, different contexts, different rationales.

I would love to go back to Cleveland and do a “7 Up” type series [reference to Up series of seven documentary films by Michael Apted] on these men. Say, come back in a year and then five years. I would hope to make a piece more vérité, assuming the men would let me have access. I think it could be stupendous—a kind of long-term observation of downlow/sexual practice over time.

Q: Was interviewing drag queens ever an option?

A: We did, but it seemed to be a whole other topic in itself …

Q: What was the most challenging part for you?

A: Just finding the men … and finding people who were willing to be in it … There are hidden realities we didn’t see. There is still a lot of mystery with this topic …

Q: There is a moving scene when Kerwin comes out to his Dad. How common is this in the DL community?

A: It’s hard to tell …

Q: What advice would you give for aspiring women filmmakers?