National Geographic is a world renowned magazine that allows people to discover foreign places in the comfort of their own home. One reason why National Geographic has been so successful is because they take such vivid pictures. According to Shekhar Deshpande, author of "The Confident Gaze", their pictures don't show the full truth of all the issues going on. Deshpande states, "we forget that the photographs and the contexts in which they are placed represent a very conscious effort by the editiors to make the world a happy place and a happy place especially fro the Westen eye" (2). In other words National Geographic take pictures to represent what ever emotion they want you to feel while reading the article. The magazine tries to make poverty seem happy or improved to keep the Western eye reading their articles.
National Geographic needs to stop worrying about how many readers they have and begin to show truth in what they display in their magazine. National Geographic shows poverty and other sad stories in their magazine, but it leaves out important issues such as neighboring wars or an arms race. If they tell the truth of the real problems that are occuring in other countries the Western eye will still be interested. Deshpande states, "Human suffering becomes worth a good image" (2). Deshpande means that National Geographic would rather show a mother of four children not having enough food to support them rather than thousands of lives lost in a war.
Reading "The Confident Gaze" reassured my thoughts on continously looking at media critically.
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