I have a confession to make.
Not too long ago, I had bright purple streaks in my dark brown hair.
It was fun.
My children’s classmates thought I was the coolest mom ever, and convenience-store clerks with multiple piercings gave me compliments.
So … I’ve always had a soft spot in my heart for Glee’s Tina Cohen-Chang with her slightly goth look, colorful make-up and ever-changing hair.
I think she’s cool.
But I’m not sure Tina would agree.
She seems to want to change herself to put up a specific image. In season one, she revealed she didn’t really stutter, she had just done it to get attention. And in season two, she wore blue contact lenses so she’d look more like the models she saw in magazines.
And while I totally admire her hair, nails, make-up and clothes, Tina (who’s played by Jenna Ushkowitz) doesn’t strike me as a true goth. She’s a little too cheerful. A little too eager-to-please.
And, she’s shown a lack of confidence — whether it’s bursting into tears while singing “I Follow Rivers” at the poorly attended Glee Club fundraiser or worrying that she wasn’t as good as Rachel when Mr. Schuster asked her to sing “Tonight” from “West Side Story.”
So, if I were the librarian at William McKinley High, I’d pull Tina aside and give her My Not-So-Still Life by Liz Gallagher (Wendy Lamb Books, 2011).
Because it’s about a girl who discovers what’s under her make-up and day-glo hair.
Vanessa is a high school artist with big dreams. She doesn’t just want her art to stand out, she wants to stand out as well. As she says early on in the book, “All the talent in the world doesn’t equal an actual personality. It’s not enough only to make the art. You have to be the artist.”
So her look is always changing. Her friend, Nick, colors her hair whenever she asks him to and does her make-up to match.
And Vanessa plans outfits that help her stand out.
For example, on the day she has a job interview at an art supply store she wears a purple net top, short, black pleated skirt and hot pink fishnet stockings. She considers wearing something else, but decides this look is “more professional.”
As the book proceeds, Vanessa gets so caught up in reinventing who she is and finding newer, cooler, more artistic friends that her focus on her art wanes. She saves her project for the school art show until the very end and then spray paints a wall and a nearby park in a misguided attempt at public art. Meanwhile, she pushes her two long-time friends — Nick and Holly — to do things they’re not ready to do because she thinks they’re not taking enough risks. And, Vanessa almost does something she’s not ready for either.
It takes temporarily losing their friendship for Vanessa to see that she may be pushing herself and them too hard
So she decides to back off.
She dyes her hair its natural brown (a color it hasn’t been since sixth grade), cleans up her public art and eventually learns that, as she puts it, “There’s a shock to not being shocking.”
I don’t think Tina pushes other people to do things they’d rather not. But, like Vanessa, I don’t think she’s 100 percent sure of who she is beneath the colored extensions and pink eyeshadow. I think spending some time with
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