Gilgamesh and Mean Girls: Shockingly Similar??
On first glance, Mean Girls and Gilgamesh flawlessly embody each other's antithetical. With contrasting settings, timeline, characters and plot, these two pieces of literature seem to lack any grounds of similarity. But as one begins to unveil the true nature of these somewhat iconic psychological profiles, the resemblance is surprisingly stark.
The epic of gilgamesh follows our protagonist(gilgamesh), as he bluntly, ventures into the world to accomplish his unintelligible, and candidly egotistically pursuits- parallel to the plot mean girls where our protagonist progresses to achieve her negligible goal of popularity. While the comparison in strong within it self, Gilgamesh and Mean Girls seem similar in similar character, power dynamics within characters, and, plot while there settings differ, as there set in different time periods.
In the initial books Gilgamesh is described as heroic, valiant and intrepid. But by digging deeper into his character, it’s obvious he carries insecurity, self-doubt, and internal self-degradation, as a product of years of unrealistic expectations inflicted on him, due to his status as a demigod. This is shown when he says, “I am the mightiest! I am the man who can make the world tremble!”(p. #)Similarly, Regina’s confident and intimidating demeanor which perfectly complements her villainous persona. Behaves no more than a defense mechanism, to disguise her inner insecurity, perpetuated by unrealistic and frankly inconsequential beauty standards heavily imposed on women and children in every corner of the world.
Both Gilgamesh and Regain heavily rely, and associate themselves with circumstantial features derived from their unreal personas-often causing them to overlook and ignore the true and aching internal conflict within themselves. Illustrating the simple fact that characters, are far more complex that the societal boxes of good and evil, as the ideology of “good” and “bad” is in a state o constant change, there are boundless inconsiderable factors simply unseeable to our one dimensional view of fictional worlds. While many people have committed atrocious crimes, and this is to no way undermine that, human beings are far more complicated than their actions, yet still in my opinion actions do play an incredibly large role to judgement of character. Still it doesn't elimate complexity and potentially connection, and therefore while personified as different Regina and Gilgamesh Remain similar.
IN addition the methodologies Gilgamesh and Regina have created in order to maintain their personas and fulfill fantasies they may have created to mend internal wounds derived from societal and personal degradation, are astonishingly similar
From power dynamics used to assert dominance-to shared personality traits from people within their cliques. Gilgamesh, with his personal, preponderant, and down the line unconsciously competitive relationship with Enkidu (Gretchen), “the contest was over”, and Regina with her authoritative, and dominant relationship with her friends-Exhibits that the similarities between Gilgamesh and Regina lie further than internal wounds and experiences, their psychological profile, methodology, and behavior seem to remain identical.
While there are similarities between the stories, on significant, and somewhat obvious difference would be the setting. With Gilgamesh taking place thousands of years before Mean Girls, virtually every aspect of the story, beyond the attributes of characters vary quite drastically. The largest implication is the alteration in mannerisms, and techniques used to achieve one’s goals. One example, would be Gilgamesh physically slaying Humbaba to assert his dominance, while Regina had to resort to more sly methods in order to sabotage Katie .
Regina and Gilgamesh show similarity motives, intentions, and rationality. The main reason Gilgamesh may be accepted, or portrayed differently is their status, prestige-and more importantly time difference.While Mean Girls may be not a direct retelling of gilgamesh, the impact Gilgamesh had on literature is truly unquantifiable, so it’s highly probable it directly impacted a text which had some influence on mean girls.
