Fictional character from the Fox series Glee
Tina Cohen-Chang is a fictional character from the Fox musical comedy-drama series "Glee". The character is portrayed by actress Jenna Ushkowitz and has appeared in "Glee" from its pilot episode, first broadcast on May 19, 2009. Tina was developed by "Glee" creators Ryan Murphy, Brad Falchuk and Ian Brennan. Initially, she is a shy and insecure performer with a fake stutter, and member of the glee club at the fictional William McKinley High School in Lima, Ohio, where the show is set. As the series progressed, she became more independent and confident.
Storylines.
Tina auditions for the glee club with the song "I Kissed a Girl" by Katy Perry. Throughout the episode it is made clear that she speaks with a stutter. Her first solo performance as part of the club is "Tonight" from "West Side Story". Fellow club member Rachel Berry (Lea Michele) had wanted the solo for herself and quits New Directions in protest. Tina feels bad that she caused Rachel to quit, but Mr. Schuester continues to support her. Tina goes on a date with Artie Abrams (Kevin McHale) and confesses to him that she has been faking her speech impediment since the sixth grade. She explains that as a painfully shy girl, she had wanted to drive others away. However, she also says, that since she has joined the glee club, she no longer wants to do that. Artie, a paraplegic, is hurt that she faked a disability, as he had thought that they had a connection. After a few months, Artie forgives Tina but makes sexist comments about her appearance, suggesting that she should begin wearing more revealing clothes if she wants to be with him. Tina shouts at him, prompting Artie to apologize and the two reunite. In the episode "Dream On", Tina tries to help Artie achieve his dream, which is to dance; but it proves to be an impractical endeavor. During a vampire craze at McKinley in the "Theatricality" episode, Principal Figgins bans Tina's gothic wardrobe. After dressing like Lady Gaga, she learns to be theatrical and scares Figgins into letting her wear her regular clothing by dressing as a vampire, which Figgins seems to believe is real.
The season two premiere, "Audition", exposes that over the summer, Tina began dating Mike Chang (Harry Shum, Jr.). She cites Artie's poor and occasionally chauvinistic treatment of her as her boyfriend; she and Mike had grown closer as camp counselors together at "Asian Camp". She and Mike had the longest-lasting continuous relationship on the show, and she reveals in the third-season episode "The First Time" that she and Mike had first slept together over the summer—she describes it as magical. Tina helps Mike with his singing; with her tutelage, he's able to get the part of Riff in McKinley's "West Side Story". After Rachel gets suspended from school in time for Sectionals, Tina leads "ABC" alongside Mike on second lead; New Directions wins. In "Props", when New Directions starts planning a set list for the impending Nationals competition, Tina becomes frustrated because Rachel is again singing lead while she remains stuck in the background. Tina walks out. When Rachel tries to bribe her to withdraw her objections, she tells Rachel that she wants to experience a standing ovation of her own. Tina later falls into a fountain and strikes her head, which causes her to experience a vision in which all of the glee club members have switched roles—most notably, she sees herself as Rachel and Rachel as her. "Rachel" performs "Because You Loved Me", and the club gives her a standing ovation. She thanks "Tina" for her support, and "Tina" in turn gives "Rachel" advice on how to salvage her failed NYADA audition. After Tina comes back to reality, she conveys that advice to Rachel.
In the fourth season premiere, "The New Rachel", Tina develops a new sassy personality while it's revealed that she broke up with Mike during the summer after his graduation. She wants to become the lead singer of New Directions, as Rachel had promised her, and competes with Brittany Pierce (Heather Morris), Blaine (Darren Criss), and Unique (Alex Newell), but Blaine is picked instead. She later refuses to try out for the school musical, "Grease", when Mike returns to help cast and choreograph it, not wanting to spend time with him, but ultimately accepts the role of Jan. Tina develops an infatuation on her gay, fellow New Directions' member, Blaine. Oblivious to her affections, Tina struggles with her unrequited love, but after a while Tina gets over her crush on Blaine and joins him to buy an engagement ring for Kurt. Tina and Blaine remain best friends.
In season five, Tina is nominated for prom queen in "Tina in the Sky with Diamonds" and works to win the title, hiring Dottie Katzatori (Pamela Chan) as an assistant and dumping Sam as her prom date in order to win the single girl vote. Tina wins prom queen, but she is emotionally wrecked when a new cheerleader, Bree (Erinn Westbrook), dumps a bucket of slushies on her, in similar fashion to the movie "Carrie". Kitty Wilde (Becca Tobin) gives Tina her dress and Tina goes back to stage in glory with the glee club's encouragement. And like all the members of glee club, Tina is devastated and heartbroken when Finn Hudson (Cory Monteith) suddenly dies. In "Trio", she is caught by Blaine when she and Sam Evans (Chord Overstreet) make out in a classroom after the school is closed. She spends her last days of high school doing activities with fellow glee club seniors Blaine, Artie, and Sam Evans. She graduates with them in the middle of season five and goes to study at Brown University. Later, she visits New York to attend Rachel's opening night in "Funny Girl" on Broadway.
In the final season, Tina and the other glee club alumni returns to help Rachel recruit new members for the newly rebooted glee club. She and Quinn Fabray (Dianna Agron) helps Becky convince her new boyfriend that she is in every club of the school. She, Quinn, Sue, and Coach Roz get a huge surprise when they find out that Becky's boyfriend, Darrell, does not have Down syndrome like Becky does. They all get a big lesson when they confront him and realize that a person with Down syndrome should be treated like everyone else. In "A Wedding", Tina tries to propose to Mike, and is rejected. It is revealed that Tina joins the glee club because she and Artie were playing truth or dare with their goth friends in the Pilot's parallel episode "2009". In the series finale, she starred in Artie's film that got into Slamdance Film Festival and now officially a couple with Artie. She attends the rededication to the McKinley's auditorium to the late Finn Hudson. She performs one last time with almost every member of New Directions from all seasons and take a bow with the rest of the Glee Cast.
Development.
In casting "Glee", series creator Ryan Murphy sought out actors who could identify with the rush of starring in theatrical roles. Instead of using traditional network casting calls, he spent three months on Broadway, where he found Ushkowitz, who had previously starred in the Broadway revival of "The King and I". The "Glee" casting associate in New York had previously cast Ushkowitz in "Spring Awakening".
Ushkowitz was initially given little information about Tina's backstory and believed that her stutter was real. She was pleased when the truth was revealed, however, explaining: "It would have been fun to keep it because that just gives her one more quirk, but this opens up a whole new set of doors for Tina." Ushkowitz has created her own backstory for Tina, and believes that she is rebelling against her mother rather than genuinely being a Goth, explaining: "I don't think her room is filled with dark posters and heavy metal stuff—I just think this is a phase she's going through. There's definitely a lot of options for all the characters to evolve and change next year. I'm totally rooting for Tina to join The Cheerios or something crazy like that."
Ushkowitz is close to her co–star Kevin McHale, and the two of them are in support of the relationship between their characters, referred to by the portmanteau "Artina", for Artie and Tina. McHale described Artie and Tina's relationship as being similar to the one between Cory (Ben Savage) and Topanga (Danielle Fishel) in the ABC comedy–drama "Boy Meets World", and believes they will always be together. The two characters did break up between seasons one and two, and they did not reconcile throughout season three.
Although a number of the student cast members were seniors in the third season and graduated when it ended it was stated at the 2011 San Diego Comic-Con that Tina will be a junior, and hence not graduating with them. Before the third season's debut in September 2011, Murphy said that Tina's role would increase in that season.
Musical performances.
"Glee"'s cover of Cyndi Lauper's "True Colors", featuring Ushkowitz as Tina on lead vocals, was released as a single, available for digital download, and was included on the soundtrack album "". Zap2it writer Liz Pardue was pleased with the solo, and Raymund Flandez of "The Wall Street Journal" hailed the track as showcasing Ushkowitz's "strong crystalline voice". Gerrick D. Kennedy, writing for the "Los Angeles Times", wrote that the "poignant" rendition was one of his "feel-good, tearjerker moments". The version charted at number 47 on the Australian Singles Chart, 38 on the Canadian Hot 100, 15 on the Irish Singles Chart, 35 on the UK Singles Chart, and 66 on the United States' "Billboard" Hot 100.
Tina and Mike share a duet of "Sing!" in the second-season episode "Duets", which was Aly Semigran of MTV and Anthony Benigno of the "Daily News" favorite routine of the episode, though Benigno gave it a "B" grade, as its appeal hinged on Mike's dancing. "Vanity Fair"'s Brett Berk gave it four stars out of five, his highest rating of the episode. Though Flandez and the "Houston Chronicle"'s Bobby Hankinson also commented positively on the song, the former thought that Tina's sung interjections became annoying and the latter called it "far from the best of the evening". "Sing!" debuted at number 87 on the Hot 100, and also made number 67 on the Canadian Hot 100. 
"Special Education"'s concluding number, a cover version of "Dog Days Are Over" with lead vocals by Ushkowitz and Amber Riley, was favored as its musical highlight. Hankinson said that the performance conveys "the exact brand of high-energy jubilation that I love the most," and Jen Harper of BuddyTV was similarly impressed. Semigran characterized the decision to have Ushkowitz and Riley perform lead vocals as "unconventional (but oddly fitting)" and named the cover "a winner", while "The A.V. Club" contributor Emily VanDerWerff wrote that show "hits the song out of the park". Benigno gave the song a "B+", and "Entertainment Weekly"'s Tim Stack gave it an "A", and said series creator Ryan Murphy "chose the perfect gals to pull off this cover". The rendition debuted at number 22 on both the Hot 100 and Canadian Hot 100, and pushed the original version of the song by Florence and the Machine ahead of it to number 21 on the Hot 100, up from number 58 in the previous week.
The series' version of "ABC" by The Jackson 5 in the third season "Hold On to Sixteen" episode, featuring Ushkowitz as one of the leads, was singled out for demonstrating "what a lovely singer Tina is" by "Billboard"'s Rae Votta, and BuddyTV editor John Kubicek said he enjoyed it "mostly because Tina deserves more singing time". It entered the Hot 100 at number 88, and the Canadian Hot 100 at 93. Tina sings L-O-V-E with Mike in the "Heart" episode, which "The Washington Post"'s Jen Chaney characterized as "cute and buoyant" and gave an "A−", and "HuffPost TV"'s Crystal Bell called "absolute perfection". Michael Slezak of "TVLine" praised their "sweet vocals" and gave the performance a "B".
Céline Dion's "Because You Loved Me", featured in the "Props" episode, performed by Tina as Rachel received positive reviews. Both Chaney, who gave the song an "A−", and "Entertainment Weekly"'s Erin Strecker, who graded it