Deshpande's Article Summery

Shekhar Deshpande’s Article is about National Geographic and how they are pulling the wool over our eyes and showing us what we want to see, just to make money. He starts off by talking about the 50th anniversary of India and that National Geographic has taught Americans about the rest of the world for over a century. Deshpande then goes on to talk about magazines are undeniably, a part of our culture and that “Middle Class parents have regarded the investment in the subscription as necessary for the exposure that the magazine gives their children about the world.” I didn’t really agree with Deshpande’s opinion on this matter. To me, if you want an easy way to educate your children about the world it’s as easy as sitting them down in front of a T.V. and having them watch the Discovery channel, or History Channel. Since most people already have cable this alternative would definitely be cheaper as well, and would probably hold the children’s attention longer than a simple magazine.
To be honest the first page didn’t really make any sense to me, mostly because it didn’t have any sense of direction, it was a bunch of unquestionable, blatantly stated facts or background information that really left me wondering what the point was to this whole article. It wasn’t until I got to the second page that this article began to make sense.
The second and third pages of Deshpande’s article were about how National Geographic has been fooling America into not thinking about the actual situation these countries are in. I believe these pages can be summarized best by Deshpande claim that “It is slick, it is technically flawless or even adventurous, and it attempts to sanitize and universalize the uncomfortable as well as different elements of other cultures”, meaning that although it may not be dark in nature, National Geographic has sanitized or eroded the dirty truth of the world. Eastern or “third world” countries are not as picturesque as National Geographic makes them out to be. Oftentimes there are people starving, there are wars, even mass genocide such as the one in Darfur, Sudan. All of these things are going on while they are taking pictures of pretty boats and running animals. It makes you wonder if National Geographic is out there to actually inform the American people of events from around the world, or to just make a few dollars while they perpetuate the ignorance that the American people have become so accustomed to.