The Confident Gaze - Corrina Brown

After reading Deshpande's roughly three page article you get a good idea about what he feels National Geographic Magazine does or rather what they don't do with their photographs. Deshpande feels that National Geographic magazine doesn't portray the truth in their photos but rather "beautifies" them to make them more viewable to the Westerner's eye. "It is as if that world needs to be posed in the appropriate way to the Western observer, he could not see it in its bare essentialities." Deshpande here is claiming that for some reason Americans could not handle the pain and suffering that is actually happening in the countries that National Geographic photographs. Of course we all are aware of the fact that most other countries viewed in National Geographic are struggling but Deshpande doesn't think we would be able to handle seeing this suffering with our own eyes. Deshpande also states "It is quite sensitive to trouble spots and trouble contexts; it does not pretend to evade such situations. But while it covers or represents such issues or situations, it can sanitize and even beautify the blood and gore of the conflict." Again I will say Deshpande is claiming that National Geographic is in areas where people are struggling on a daily basis, war is happening in the backyard of once family neighborhoods, but we don't see the entire truth of these happenings in the photos throughout the magazine. Desphande believes that photos show the "happy" part of what is going on in these places. Instead of photographing the bare truth the photos are edited and made to look more presentable to our Western eye.