‘Bad Asian’ Makes Good on Filmmaker’s Quest for Cultural Identity

Bad Asian is a five-minute socially conscious short that purviews what appears to be a carefree hook-up between two Asians. Off to the couch, Melody (Lee Hubilla) and Chris (Rob Chen) delve in, and our blood pressure elevates in kind. Then maybe as expected, the wrong words come out and ain’t going back in. “You look just like me,” Hubilla blurts out almost subconsciously, and with bewilderment screaming inside and out of the fourth wall, the moment encapsulates the long journey for cultural self-discovery for the filmmaker.

“I’ve always been in denial of the Asian part of myself. Like when people would say I forget that you’re Asian, I loved it,” said Kim Marcelino, and this romantic dealbreaker runs parallel to the realization she eventually achieved.

Long before, her upbringing and background paved the way for the disconnect. Both her parents emigrating to America, neither really had a strong cultural connection to their home countries of China and the Philippines.

Not much of an accent either, Marcelino followed suit and didn’t find the term “Banana” to be slippery in the least. Yellow on the outside and white on the inside, she remembered, “I was proud of not being super Asian.”

The awfulness of the acceptance still with her, she also just went with what she knew. A lot of Cantonese-speaking Chinese in her upper east side schooling, the youngster stuck with her kind - so to speak. “It was easier for me to identify with the white kids. So I was always one of those Asians,” said the Long Island City, New York resident.

More than fitting in, the choice was also a judgment call. “It seemed like being white was a cooler thing to be,” said Marcelino.

The cultural gymnastics didn’t dull her true passion, though. “I’ve always been a writer,” she said. “In high school, I had first period free, so I would go to school early and use that time to write.”

On the other hand, her involvement in filmmaking began optically, and right out of high school, she was behind the camera. “I freelanced for a few years and really loved it,” Marcelino said.

But the uncertainty of any film career had her ready a backup plan, and she took a pretty broad detour. “I studied art history,” said the New School and NYU graduate, and the circumnavigation took her halfway through a doctorate.

Full circle not to be, Marcelino realized how unhappy she was, so the future director tested her limits. “What’s the scariest thing I could do right now, and I decided that was improv,” Marcelino revealed. “I completely fell in love with comedy.”

A few years passed and all the punchlines landed for more than just laughs.

“You learn so much being on stage, because you’re writing in real time,” she said. “You’re seeing what the audience does and doesn’t react to.”

As a result, the learning curve took her back to the beginning. “I now had the confidence that maybe I should pursue screenwriting,” said Marcelino.

Directing was next, and she drew on the past again. “Once I finally stepped into the role, all these disparate things I’ve done came together,” she clarified.

Her ancestral awakening followed. “Culturally, we started having conversations. It entered mainstream society,” she said. “Diversity, inclusion, representations on TV and film on a wider scale - it was easier to talk about because there was a vocabulary for it.”

The pace picked up considerably when Covid overtook the world, though. “The Asian-American hate crimes gave a lot of us something to coalesce around,” Marcelino remembered.

Community found, the connection didn’t completely ease her pain. “Some of the guilt that I feel is why did it take these awful things to happen to make me identify with my Asian heritage,” she lamented.

So the stage was set for Bad Asian, and a romantic scenario let the filmmaker explore the glaring hole in her life. “Would it be healing to be in a relationship with someone like me, and did I need to love myself before I could have loved an Asian man,” she posed.

For better or worse, the exercise would have to be academic. Married to a Dutch man, she revealed, “I just never got to that place while I was single.”

Of course, along these lines, screenings showed that she wasn’t alone. “Knowing there’s so many other people out there who share my experience, it’s so healing and so transformative,’ said the mother of one.

The same goes for finding the right actors and the healing was not contained. “One of the things I really loved about the process with these actors is the way they connected with the material in their own unique ways. They weren’t identical to my relationship, but had their own stories that they were exploring,” she said.

Discovery morphing into method, the chemistry cooked. “That was their way into the characters and the story,” said Marcelino.

She then gave voice to making them laugh until it hurts. “I can’t dive into these deeply traumatic things without making a joke,” she explained. “It’s the only way I can personally face these difficult subjects.”

A burden that was lifted for audiences, and from at least one experience, Asians really got the joke. The short was screened at the Asian American International Film Festival where most of the New York viewers were of her ancestry. “Every single joke landed in a big way,” the director proudly asserted.

“Joyous,” for sure, exclusivity is not the barometer because popular culture can make any of us hate ourselves. Whether it’s beauty standards, sexual orientation or career standing, among many things, the film is not meant to leave anyone out. “There’s things that society thinks everyone should be. We don’t always live up to that. So I think there’s universality that everyone can connect with. At least that’s the goal,” Marcelino concluded.