“I’m just Marshall. Like, I’m not your fucking savior.” Eminem’s quintessentially bold and intellectual demeanor is highlighted in Stans, traits that those interviewed for this documentary — the titular “Stans” — deeply admire. Directed by Steven Leckert, the film includes conversations with Eminem, Dr. Dre, LL Cool J, Adam Sandler, and Carson Daly. Most of Stans explores Eminem’s music and his career through the lens of ordinary fans who find pieces of themselves in his 2000 track about a devoted fan but have moved beyond its themes of obsessive fandom and dark thoughts. Fast forward 25 years, “to Stan” has come to signify being thoroughly dedicated, keeping up with all your favorite celebrity’s updates. For the fans in Stans, their devotion to Eminem was singular and unwavering from the get-go.

STANS: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT? 

The Gist: “Hi, my name’s chika-chika [Insert Stan Here].” Stans employs the hook of Eminem’s hit 1999 song “My Name Is” to introduce various individuals for whom being a fan of Eminem is a central aspect of life. Zolt, from France, has gone as far as to emulate his idol by frequently visiting Detroit. Katie created her version of Eminem’s superhero outfit from the “Without Me” video and secured a job at Gilbert’s in the Detroit area where Eminem used to work. We also meet Nikki, who holds a world record for the most tattoos of a single artist, alongside Ramon, Brendan, Noah, and others. Each fan showcases a unique quirk in their Eminem admiration, yet they all view his impact as universal. As Brendan notes, “there’s a Slim Shady in all of us.”

Stans is available on Paramount+, allowing it to draw from MTV’s extensive archive. This is crucial for a documentary involving Eminem because his bombastic, irreverent “Slim Shady” persona was a breeding ground for content creation on Total Request Live. Carson Daly reflects on the late 1990s scene when Eminem rocketed to the forefront of the rap scene and saturated American pop culture. Many Stans vividly recall this era. While tracks like “Don’t Give a Fuck” from the Slim Shady LP were instrumental — as Dr. Dre says, it partly inspired Eminem’s signing with Aftermath — for fans like Ramon, it was all about the mindset. “He’s just being himself and enjoying it. Taking on pop culture luminaries precisely — he doesn’t give a fuck!”

For many of the Stans, their journey with Eminem is personal. His struggles aligned with their struggles. His resilience inspired their own. While Stans periodically cuts to Eminem himself, who describes his early life challenges and says listening to hip-hop – and then writing his own rhymes – empowered him, it stays mostly with the Stans and their own stories of connection. Some of them were bullied at school. But they had songs like “Brain Damage” to crank in their headphones. “I had Marshall’s music…it made me feel like I wasn’t alone.”

Stans also veers into straight doc material on Eminem – the trajectory of his career, his addiction to pain pills, his life as a father. But once it gets around to “Stan” and its Devon Sawa-starring music video, the focus is on both the rapper and his cadre of the most dedicated. The song is “probably how a lot of people see me,” Nikki says. But the Stans mostly take the side of their hero. “Stan,” they say, is “extreme.” But in another way, it’s the purest expression of what inspired their deeply held fandom in the first place.  

What Movies Will It Remind You Of? There has never really been a formal documentary project about Eminem, with origin stories, successes, struggles, and sit-down interviews. This is something Stans acknowledges by becoming such a doc every now and then. Adam Sandler offers a few testimonials to Em’s talent in Stans – they’ve traded cameos in projects over the years, with the rapper popping up in Funny People and playing a heckler character in the recent Happy Gilmore 2. And might Stans and its examination of 8 Mile and Em in that era be joined by “8 Mile: The Series”? That’s what 50 Cent once teased. (50 also surfaces for a couple seconds in Stans, in footage dating from 2001and his and Em’s appearances on the Anger Management Tour.)

Performance Worth Watching: We know he recently did it again, but who watches the VMAs now? In Stans, it’s the archival footage of Eminem’s 2000 VMAs performance of “The Real Slim Shady” and “The Way I Am” – featuring an army of blonde-dyed Slim sims – that really speaks to his creativity and reach.   

Memorable Dialogue: From Alex, a Stan since 1999: “Eminem is absolutely like an unwilling cult leader. He’s someone who did not want to take up that position, but has been, to no fault of his own, kind of thrust into it.”

Sex and Skin: None. Well, unless you count Eminem’s giant plastic ass in “The Real Slim Shady” clip. “My bum is on your lips…”

Our Take: Beyond its themes of obsessive behavior and self-harm and entry into the pop culture lexicon, “Stan” is also notable for being a song written around the idea of correspondence. The writing, sending, and exchange of physical letters through the mail. It’s an extension into the physical for obsession, something we kept thinking about during Stans. If it was released today, would the character in Eminem’s song use ChatGPT to manage the lengths of his fandom? 

But print is also central to Stans in other significant ways. Eminem opened up his writing process to the filmmakers; in interviews, he even describes what kind of pens he uses in his composition books. And the Stans are fascinated when presented with Em’s handwritten lyric sheets. (“I feel like a see a busy brain.”) It’s like they can see everything that made him a hero in their eyes, right in those cramped scribbled couplets and curse word scrawls. 

And most of the Stans admit to having penned fan mail they never sent. One guy jokes he’s still waiting for Em to respond to his email from a decade ago. (Jokes, kind of – there is another current in Stans that suggests the interviewees were hoping for an IRL meetup.) And in one of the film’s most fan-forward and powerful moments, a young woman reads her own unsent letter aloud. We see her handwriting. We hear her working through the thoughts she wrote down, see her finding solace. “Your picture on my wall reminds me it’s not so bad, it’s not so bad…”

Our Call: Stream It, particularly if you yourself are an Eminem stan. The rapper is thoughtful in his interviews, but true to form, he also kisses off his haters. Few of whom appear here, though. With a ton of input from a collection of real-life Stans, Stans attempts to reframe the song and its themes as the realest connective tissue possible between an impossibly huge star and the fans who always stayed committed.

Johnny Loftus (@johnnyloftus.bsky.social) is a Chicago-based writer. A veteran of the alternative weekly trenches, his work has also appeared in Entertainment Weekly, Pitchfork, The All Music Guide, and The Village Voice.