San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
A family’s ‘Fabulous’ story
But while the film centers on the Basco men, their sister Arianna is not one to be ignored. In fact, the film’s cowriter doesn’t think the story needs to stop there.
“It’s a good and interesting display of what these four brothers can do as Filipino American leading men. They hadn’t been afforded that opportunity in Hollywood, and this was the perfect vehicle to explore that,” Arianna said. “But I think that there’s room for a spinoff. I think there’s room for ‘The Fabulous Filipino Sister.’ ”
Arianna even said she and her brothers are exploring “a series that dives deeper into the family, because there is so much to say about Pinay women.”
Until then, the family points to 14yearold Ella Jay Basco, Derek’s FilipinoKorean American daughter, who worked alongside Margot Robbie and Rosie Perez in 2020’s DC film “Birds of Prey: And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn.” The young Basco has been adding to her credits as an actress and singersongwriter, collaborating with East Bay Filipino American rapper Ruby Ibarra for her new song, “Gold.”
The two recently dropped a music video that begins with Ella Jay starring in a soap commercial that’s a nod to the “skin whitening” soap prevalent in the Philippines as a commentary on colorism within Filipino and Filipino American communities.
“Ella has a whole play on that, and Ruby’s part is just brilliant. It’s actually about celebrating their skin tone, which is wonderful,” said her uncle Dionysio.
The music video will be featured before the festival’s screening of “The Fabulous Filpino Brothers” on Friday, May 14, at Fort Mason Flix, truly making the evening a Basco family event.
Here are highlights from The Chronicle’s conversation with the Basco clan — Dante, Darion and Dionysio logged on from San Luis Obispo County during a golf trip with their uncles, and Derek and Arianna joined from Los Angeles. Q: Early in the film you guys introduce the brothers, and I was cracking up because you got to “the dark one.” I laughed because I’m like, “Wait, I’m the dark one in my family” — as in the darkskinned one. But I soon began to think, “Did they mean emotionally dark? Or dark skinned?”
Dante: Both!
Q: Colorism is certainly a thing, and it resonates with many FilAm kids like me whose (grandmothers) would yell at them for playing in the sun too much.
Dionysio: We do have that in the Filipino culture — in all cultures across the world, actually — where generally lighter (skin) is better … so it does touch on that.
Arianna: But that line was really intended to talk about (Darion’s character’s) personality.
Dionysio: And, in our particular family at least, we were never trying to pass (as white). We were in the sun, we celebrated our darkness growing up, and our parents did too. The only time it was a problem was when our agents told us it was a problem, because of colorism in Hollywood. Like being lighter, you can play Chinese or Japanese. Growing up, they wanted us to pass as that. Otherwise, if we were darker, we would play more Latino roles.
Q: Watching the movie with my husband, who is white, we looked at each other and I was like, “This is a really good crash course in Filipino American Family 101.” Was that your intention? I mean, this story resonated with me as a Filipino American, but did you have a broader audience in mind for this film?
Dante: The last 10 years I’ve been just producing films, but exclusively Asian American or Asian media. I mean, we’re at this really great time for Asians in pop culture media . ... But a lot of my friends in the Hollywood industry were like, “Why are you doing this? We can get a bigger budget if we have a white lead.” Sure, it may help have a wider appeal, but I really didn’t get into producing for the lucrative aspect of it. It’s really about being a storyteller and growing as an artist, and that led us to this film.
Derek: The beautiful thing about this film is that normally in Hollywood when we audition, there’s only one role (for a Filipino American actor) and we’re always competing against each other. Those roles also only show one facet of the FilAm experience. In this movie, we show four different leading men that are Filipino. So, it can be done.
On top of that, you’ll notice that we’re not leaning too heavily on the idea of being Filipino, we’re just four guys … with the culture as the backdrop.
Darion: What was really important too in this film, for me and Dante when we were writing it, is to represent not only FilAms, but the Bay Areaspecific Filipinos.
Dante: We’re very unique. This isn’t “Crazy Rich Asians.” It’s more like “Crazy Ass BlueCollar Asians.”
Q: Arianna played a nurse in the film, which is a Filipino trope. Were you worried about perpetuating that stereotype?
Dante: Well, (the character) is named after our Auntie Pinky, whose real name is Doris and is my dad’s sister, who’s also in the movie, and she’s a nurse. So yes, we did lean into certain stereotypes, but there are a lot of truths to some of them.
Q: And, to be clear, there’s no shame in being a Filipino nurse. I have plenty of nurses in my family too.
Dante: Yeah, shoutout to the Filipino nurses and all the health care workers out there.
And for real, we’ve been upset watching all these medical dramas, like “ER” — one of the biggest shows for a decade — but it didn’t have any Filipino nurses. We’re like, “What hospital in the country is this?”
Q: Maybe you guys can produce a medical drama! But seriously, what’s next on the Basco family world domination plan?
Derek: We’re just going to continue to create, whether it’s writing more scripts, making music.
Arianna: We want to provide space for people of color to play and to be looked at with dignity and as real artists.
Derek: Our advice to other artists out there, especially Filipinos, is create it, write it, produce it, shoot it. If you don’t see yourself out there, write the script — and call me so I can star in it!