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If you’re anything like me you likely spent the majority of your childhood bouncing off the walls to whatever Eminem dropped that week, and while the man’s discography has only grown in the intervening years, Slim’s largely done his best to stay fairly anonymous.
Yes, he launched the fantastic based-on-true-events 8-Mile, but despite the fact that film traced Eminem’s life before he blew up—it was also pretty dramatised.
Well, we love a good doco here, and Em’s long-awaited Stans is about ready to release: it’s launching into US cinemas on 7 August for one weekend only, before finding a home on Paramount+ later this year.
If you don’t know what Stans is: it’s a deep look into the life of the still-polarising rapper through the lens of some of his most devout and diehard fans. The man himself is involved, of course, but Stans very much centres his impact on the world of music through the people who’ve followed him the closest.
If that tickles your fancy, or if you just want to know more about what Eminem is up to these days, read on.
What’s ‘Stans’ About?
With a sly wink, this Marshall Mathers-produced film is named after one of Eminem’s most impactful and memorable songs, ‘Stan’. Found on the artists third studio album, Stan details an incredibly toxic parasocial relationship between the titular narrator and Em himself, who eventually realises that he let his fan down.
The song has been so impactful that it literally changed our language: the term ‘stan’ was officially added to the Oxford English Dictionary in 2017, meaning someone that obsessively loves someone or something.
Naming a documentary focusing on the fans that love you after a song detailing a mentally unhinged toxic fan is quite a mood, but the people involved seem to be okay with it. Most call themselves ‘stans’, though not quite on the same level as the namesake, while also detailing the lengths they’ve gone to to witness Eminem’s life themselves, including trips to visit physical places that Marshal Mathers grew up—pilgrimages in all but name.
Eminem himself feels a bit uncomfortable with the idea that people care so much about his life’s story, and the film details some disturbing letters from the overly zealous ‘Stans’ in his audience. In saying that, the film doesn’t necessarily put his fanbase on blast: but rather focuses on what a more healthy relationship might look like.
Stans also details the life of Mathers himself: offering a more detailed look into his upbringing, his rise to fame, and the impact his music had on the world. Of course, all through the eyes of his fans, though with some first-person accounts from the man himself for good measure.
It’s not a critical look into Eminem’s career though, nor into his sometimes homophobic, sexist lyrics: this is made by fans, for fans, after all. If that sounds interesting, look out for the at-home release date soon.
The History of ‘Stan’
A song as impactful as Stan must have quite an origin story, right? Well, it all started when one of the song’s producers, ‘The 45 King’, heard Dido’s ‘Thank You’ on the 1998 film ‘Sliding Doors’. Taken by the chorus, King made up a beat by sampling the song and shared it with contacts at Interscope Records, who eventually shared it with Eminem.
Again, Dido’s amazing lyrics caught Eminem’s eyes, who felt the song’s refrain of “put your picture on my wall, it reminds me that it’s not so bad” was well suited to a song reflecting some of the often disturbing interactions he’d personally had with his own fan base. Though his music is often laced with vitriolic, violent lyrics, Eminem was keen to try to send a message to his listeners to not take his words so seriously or literally.
“I knew what I was going to write about before I wrote it,” Mathers told Genius about the writing of Stan. “A lot of times when I’m writing songs, I see visions for everything I’m writing. This was one of those.”
The song went on to become one of Mathers’ signature songs, and literally define the meaning of an overly obsessive fan.
It follows Stanley Mitchell, a devout fan of Eminem who frequently sends fan mail in an attempt to get a response: something he feels he is owed, as he sees himself as Em’s biggest fan. The rest of Stan’s life crumbles around him as he singularly obsesses over his non-existent relationship with the rapper, which eventually sees him murder himself and his girlfriend by driving his car into a river. In the mythos of the story, Eminem later attempts to write back to Stan, warning him about his obsessive tendencies and deteriorating mental health, before realising he’d seen a news story on the song’s namesake just weeks prior.
You’d think that’s where the story ends, but Eminem actually wrote a sequel to ‘Stan’: one which picks up years later and sees Stan’s bereft little brother Matthew track Eminem down, kidnap him, and take revenge for the death of his brother in the song “Bad Guy”. It’s no Stan, but it’s not terrible.
When Can I Watch ‘Stans’?
Stans will launch in AMC theatres in the US, and worldwide, on Thursday, August 7 for one weekend. Later this year it’ll be available on Paramount+, so keep an eye out.
