Deshpande Summary

Writer Shekhar Deshpande recently wrote an article by the name of "The Confident Gaze". This writing talks about the different magazines and how the images in those such as the National Geographics are influencing the readers and their education on the culture it is portraying. An image is shown as an example, the image is of a small boy painted the color red, he he ethnic and looks impovreshed and poor, his facial expression shows unhappiness and dispare. While this cover may sound upsetting, the photographer makes the picture so that it meets the viewers eye in satisfaction. Dishpande states "but while it covers or represents such issues or situations, it can sanitize and even beautifuy the blood and the gore of the conflic. This power to transform the most repulsive results of human actions around the world into images that are digestible is what makes for the culture of National Geographic" (Par 11). This is saying that even the most grusome and horrific pictures of them all could be portrayed on a magazine but the edditors and photographers are never showing what it truely is, they always have to set it up and get each detail perfectly shown as beautiful as they can make it; this is what makes a successful magizene. Most viewers and readers of these magizene's are not looking close to detail, they glance at an image and quickly read through the text, but is what they are looking at what is really being shown? Deshpande does not think so and nither do I. I believe that these people are being tricked into lies of a certian culture and because of it, it makes a magizene sell. Deshpande mentions "the 'innocent' attractiveness of the photography of National Geographic, its ambiguous representtation of the knower and the known as the most 'natural' and inevitable parts of our world are what have made for the success of the magazine" (Par 7). This is the part where he writes about how these images that are portraying fake culture are being sold because of their beauty and ability to capture parts of the image that would not be seen if seen in person. I think that the claim that concludes it all up is when he says "human suffering becomes worth a good image" (Par 10).