Who is Ben Chang in Community?

Show

Community

Played by

Ken Jeong

First episode

“Spanish 101”Season 1, Episode 2, aired September 24, 2009

Role

Main cast

Network

NBC

Occupation

Spanish teacher, then student and security guard

Show run

2009 to 2015Its sixth and final season streamed on Yahoo! Screen.

Also known as

Señor Chang, Senor Chang, Chang, El Tigre Chino

Ben Chang, better known as Señor Chang, is the explosive Spanish teacher who torments the study group in its first year. Played by Ken Jeong, he cycles through more jobs at Greendale than anyone, from teacher to student to head of campus security and beyond.

On Community, Ben Chang's story runs through Shirley Bennett (Halloween Fling), Jeff Winger (Former Student), Annie Edison (Former Student), Craig Pelton (Boss), and Abed Nadir (Former Student).

Who is Ben Chang?

Chang is the Spanish teacher whose class brings the study group together. He insists on being called Señor Chang, mocks his students, and treats his classroom like a stage. At the end of season one it comes out that he never had real teaching qualifications, and he loses his job.

From then on, Chang becomes Greendale's most persistent and unpredictable presence. He enrolls as a student, becomes a security guard, fakes amnesia, and returns as a math teacher, and through all of it he wants the one thing the group keeps denying him: a seat at their table.

Personality and comedy

Ken Jeong plays Chang as pure chaos: theatrical, vain, prone to rage, and capable of escalating any situation. He once fakes his own death to get a rise out of his students, calls himself El Tigre Chino, plays the keytar, and claims to have eaten his twin sister in the womb.

The joke is that his menace barely hides a deep loneliness. His wife throws him out, he ends up living in Greendale's air ducts, and many of his antics are lopsided attempts to belong somewhere. That mix of danger and neediness makes him one of the show's most unpredictable characters.

Key storylines

In season two Chang joins the group's anthropology class as a student and eventually wins a spot in the study group. After a Halloween fling with Shirley, a voicemail suggests he might be the father of her baby, and his help during her delivery leads her to name her son Ben. In season three he becomes head of campus security, recruits a squad of preteens, and stages a takeover of Greendale, replacing the dean with a double and getting the study group expelled before they win the school back.

In season four he returns claiming "Changnesia" and calling himself Kevin, a fake case of amnesia he uses as a cover story. In season five he is back on work release as a math teacher and joins the Save Greendale Committee, and in season six a commercial he stars in goes viral and gives him a brief taste of fame.

Behind the scenes and legacy

Ken Jeong is credited as a main cast member in all six seasons. In season one he is the only main character outside the study group, which makes his slow, strange campaign to join it a running story across the whole series.

His full name is Benjamin Franklin Chang, and his self-chosen nickname, El Tigre Chino, even appears on the back of his jacket alongside a tiger. Jeong was among the cast members announced to return when Peacock ordered a Community movie in 2022.

Ben Chang: frequently asked questions

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