Bill Duke's new film on "Downlow Men"

Legendary actor Bill Duke (American Gigolo, Get Rich or Die Tryin') was interviewed by POZ Magazine about his upcoming film Cover. Cover (which Duke directed) is an all-too-familiar (recycled?) story of "men on the DL", and is due in theatres this fall.

Over the past few years Duke received many complaints from the black LGBT community that the film will continue to inflate myths and criminalize black men "on the down low". Duke stresses, "[Cover] does not condemn anyone’s sexual behavior, it emphasizes responsibility. No matter what your preference, you have an obligation to your partner."

Well, that is challenging to believe considering that one of the early trailers (when the film was called Invisible -- you can also watch the clip below) for the film looks like it's another homo-horror flick. Every time the "DL" scenes are shown, the lights are lowered, creepy music plays, a distraught women is in tears and before you know it, the oversexed homo is killing off all the black women in the free world with HIV/AIDS!

Toward the end of the trailer an embarrassingly incorrect statistic reads, "70% of these women have contracted HIV", which implies that 70% of black women contracted HIV from men on the down low. Looks like it could be a misinformed disaster in the making, and one that many people could blindly fall for. At the very least, the trailer aims embarrassingly low -- let's hope that this is just a poor marketing decision and not the makings of another Cruising.

The film stars Vivica A. Fox and Patti LaBelle, two popular figures in the black LGBT community. Hopefully this project will not create too much backlash ... I don't know what I would do with myself if the gays no longer loved Patti!