The List: A Novel

In 2006, the activist Tarana Burke began using the phrase “me too” to help young women of color share their experiences with sexual trauma. In 2017, the phrase became a hashtag and a global force when women in the media and entertainment industries used it to draw attention to the actions of famous predatory men such as the movie executive Harvey Weinstein and the TV personality Matt Lauer. As the omniscient third-person narrator in The List states, “[S]tories of systemic abuse were coming out in sickening waves; first from Hollywood, then the music industry, then fashion, then everywhere else” (156).

Criticisms of the #MeToo movement claim that it does not offer much help to working-class women. In a New York Times article, Susan Chira and Catrin Einhorn focus on the experiences of less affluent women in Chicago, writing, “After the #MeToo movement opened a global floodgate of accounts of mistreatment, a former Chicago worker proposed a new campaign: #WhatAboutUs” (Chira, Susan, and Catrin Einhorn. “How Tough Is It to Change a Culture of Harassment? Ask Women at Ford.” The New York Times, 19 Dec. 2017). Despite such criticism, Adegoke’s novel does not align with the message of this alternative hashtag but instead maintains the mainstream focus on the experiences of women in the entertainment industry. Ola works for an online women’s magazine, while Michael works for an online men’s platform, and all of the men on The List are journalists, athletes, musicians, or content creators. However, because Adegoke’s central characters are Black, she does address a different criticism of #MeToo—the observation that it predominantly serves white women. In a direct challenge to this dynamic, Ola, Celie, and a university student named Nour El Masri are not white, but the #MeToo movement and The List give them a voice and help them to validate their experiences with sexual assault and harassment. Thus, Adegoke changes the racial dynamic but maintains the movement’s stereotypical focus on the more affluent economic classes.

The List in the novel is a direct parallel of the Shitty Media Men list, which was initiated by the journalist Moira Donegan in October 2017. Both the fictional and the real-life lists allow women to anonymously add men to a Google spreadsheet as a way to warn other women about predatory figures in the media and entertainment industries. The List dominates the discourse in the novel, and in real life, Donegan’s list also went viral. One of the men accused was the writer Stephen Elliott, who sued Donegan. In May 2023, Donegan and Elliott settled, with Elliott receiving around six figures in compensation. Within the context of the novel, Michael’s actions mirror this example, as he tries to take legal action against The List, even going so far as to speak with a lawyer and with the police, but they can provide no help. Through her fictional creation of The List, Adegoke invokes the controversy of the Shitty Media Men list and examines the ways in which its existence hurts the men who were tied to false or distorted allegations. Ultimately, however, the novel suggests that despite the presence of false allegations, not every man on The List is innocent.