Wreckless Multimodalities: Podcasting as a Counter-Hegemonic Space for Black Girls’ Embodied Sexual Literacies

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Abstract

As multimodal cultural products become more prevalent in students' lives, educators must understand their themes to develop culturally relevant practices that empower urban youth to produce knowledge and critically engage with themselves and the world. Black girls exist within a contemporary hip-hop generation that disseminates socially dominant and distorted constructions of femininity and Black female sexuality in a public space (Richardson, 2013). In hip-hop culture, Black girlhood, womanhood, and sexuality are reclaimed through wreckless theatrics. (Brown, 2013; Carney et al.,2016). Wreckless performance constructed through podcasts uplift counter-narratives that redefine Black girls sexual literacies, knowledge, and experiences from their own embodied perspectives. Multimodalities produced by Black girls disrupt traditional academic norms by acknowledging Black girls as producers of knowledge while privileging organic, ordinary practices of knowledge production. The purpose of this study is to critically explore the embodied sexual literacies, knowledges, and narratives of Black girls through the critical examination of the multimodal hip-hop podcast series Black Girl Stuff.
Theoretical Framework and Methodology
My analysis of Black Girl Stuff utilizes Collins’ (2000) matrix of domination framework to explore the sexual literacies and narratives of Black girls, highlighting how wreckless podcasting reshapes their sexual realities. Podcasting serves as public pedagogy, amplifying the voices of marginalized communities (Carrillo & Mendez, 2019; Moore, 2022). These theoretical frameworks create an analysis that describes how Black girls’ sexual literacies are shaped by and respond to social structures. An analysis of intersectionality and resistance explored how the hosts and guests of Black Girl Stuff acted as knowledge producers of their counter-hegemonic sexual narratives and literacies, resisting the suppression of Black girls’ erotic self-determination and positionality within hip-hop culture (Carney et. al, 2016).
Data Source and Analysis
For this study, I gathered data from the Gen Z talk series Black Girl Stuff (Revolt TV, 2024). While the audio transcription of the podcast provided a surface-level analysis of the narratives, the video component allowed for a closer examination of the moments of discourse through non-verbal cues and developed a deeper understanding of the hosts' and guests' embodied experiences. When analyzing narratives through multimodalities, Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) works with narrative analysis to scrutinize the choices in language that individuals use to describe their narrative experiences (Fairclough, 1989; Wodak, 2001; Rainey, 2020). My analysis of the discourses and stories shared on Black Girl Stuff follows an adaptation of CDA and narrative structural analysis to create a critical narrative inquiry method of analysis (Dennis, 2013; Rainey, 2020).
Findings & Implications for Education
These findings unlock pedagogical implications for interrupting traditional academic norms, validating marginalized knowledges, and advocating for critical discourse surrounding Black girls' embodied sexual literacies. Incorporating multimodalities into curricula amplifies marginalized voices in cultural texts that are familiar to youth, supporting culturally relevant pedagogies that empower students to navigate their complex social identities. While previous educational research has examined youth-created podcasts, this study expands the educational potential of multimodalities produced outside of traditional academic settings.

Author

• Jordyn Alyse Simmons, University of Houston