The Fanatic (2019) and Devon Sawa's Toxic Fandom Roles

When people think about the teen movie boom of the late 1990s and early 2000s, a few actors always come to mind. Freddie Prinze Jr. and Sarah Michelle Gellar were in the foreground nearly the entire time. Matthew Lillard, Joshua Jackson, Ryan Phillippe, Rachael Leigh Cook, Jennifer Love Hewitt, and Neve Campbell were there too. One of the actors who was always on the outskirts of that whole teen movie popularity was Devon Sawa.

A few movies starred Devon Sawa during that turn of the millennium popularity of teen movies. Idle Hands and Final Destination threw him into leading horror roles. Slackers built up his comedy credibility. SLC Punk! showed his alternative side. He made a slew of appearances throughout those few years. None were as important as a music video he made, though. One music video appearance changed the world.

In 2000, Eminem released a song called Stan. It told the story of an obsessive fan and how dark the relationship between artist and fan could be. It was told through a series of messages that Stan sent to Eminem and the one message that Eminem sent back. It was a moving song that had an important message to tell. That only became more apparent when the music video was released. Devon Sawa was cast as Stan, the fan obsessed with Eminem. The story of Stan played out on screen as the messages were relayed from fan to artist and artist to fan. It was hard not to get emotionally invested in what went on. Eminem crafted both a great song and great music video.

At face value, it might not seem like a world-changing song or music video. It was a musician telling the story of an obsessive fan and how bad things could get. It was mental instability through obsessive fandom. But there was one part of it that became the legacy. People have begun to refer to fandom as being a “Stan”. If they are a fan of something, they “Stan” it. As much as the original intention of Stan was to highlight the unhealthy obsession that some fans have with their favourite artists, it was turned into someone who is a big fan of something, regardless of obsession or unhealthiness.

This wasn’t the first or the only time that these themes of celebrity obsession were a part of art. There have been many instances where a storyteller latched onto that obsession to tell a story about how far a person would go to live out the dream in their head. One recent use of the fandom obsession theme was highly relevant to the legacy of Stan. The movie was 2019’s The Fanatic.

The Fanatic followed Moose (John Travolta), an autistic street performer living in Los Angeles. Every day, he would head out to Hollywood Boulevard in full costume and attempt to entertain the people walking by. When he wasn’t doing that, he was busy collecting movie memorabilia and autographs of celebrities. After failing to get a piece of wardrobe signed by the star of one of his favourite movies, something snapped inside Moose. He started stalking and harassing the celebrity to get the fan appreciation that he felt he deserved.

There were a few similarities in the stories of Stan and The Fanatic. It mostly came down to a fan trying to get an autograph, getting brushed off by the celebrity, and seeking some sort of vengeance. The difference was in how that vengeance happened. In Stan, the fan took the vengeance out through killing his girlfriend and unborn child before taking his own life. In The Fanatic, the fan went to the home of the celebrity, broke in, and started tormenting him. The target of the harassment was completely different in the two, though it very much stemmed from the same sort of incident.

The other bit of similarity came in the casting, though, again, there was a twist to it. Stan, from the music video for Stan, was played by Devon Sawa. This was in the heyday of Devon Sawa’s fame. It was the turn of the millennium. He was coming off of movies like Idle Hands, SLC Punk!, and Final Destination. He would soon be featured in Slackers and Extreme Ops. Stan was the height of his popularity. The Fanatic, nineteen years after Stan, would also feature Devon Sawa. Only, this time he would be in the role of the celebrity.

The main characters of Stan and The Fanatic were also different from each other. The more sympathetic character in each work was flipped. In Stan, Eminem was the sympathetic character. He was the victim of the harassment, and the final verse of the song made it apparent that everything was a misunderstanding. The only reason he brushed off Stan (and Stan’s brother Matthew!) was because he was rushed away after a show. But Stan was his own villain. Eminem hadn’t done anything to Stan. Stan did it to himself, harmed himself, and then eventually killed himself because of this connection and eventual disrespect he built up in his own head.

Meanwhile, with Moose, the audience was allowed a window into his head, into his thinking process. He was a sympathetic character because there was justification to his behaviour. He had autism, which made him think differently than other people. There was also no sympathy for Hunter Dunbar, the celebrity being obsessed over. He was an asshole. He treated his wife terribly. He physically assaulted Moose. He was a victim, yes, but a much more flawed victim than Eminem in Stan. There was added justification to Moose’s actions through his interactions with Hunter Dunbar.

Devon Sawa got to play both sides of the conflict, nineteen years apart. In Stan, he got to play the obsessed fan who snapped after feeling dissed by the celebrity he looked up to. He got to be the personification of the term Stan.  When it came time to make The Fanatic, he swapped roles and became the celebrity victim. He was the subject of harassment and stalking. He was the embodiment of the person that someone Stanned. He had played the Stan and became the Stanned. He got to play both roles.

The story of fandom gone wrong has been something recognized by artists for years. It could come from a real-life experience where a fan of theirs crossed a line. Or they could be grafting a stalker story onto a world that they’ve experienced. Devon Sawa played both sided of the conflict over his career. He played the celebrity in a 2019 thriller that didn’t move the cultural barometer all that much. That didn’t matter. He had played the fan in the video for an iconic song that has become the name for a rabid fan who may be a little too rabid.

Devon Sawa’s legacy may be much more than one music video, however. He was a part of the teen movie boom of the late 1990s and early 2000s that pushed a whole bunch of actors to the forefront. Many of them, like Devon Sawa, fell to the wayside after a few years in the limelight. Others persevered. Yet, few of them had the same lasting effect as Sawa’s performance as Stan. He made a mark on the world, and that mark can never be erased.

These notes can be erased, but likely won’t:

• Jeff Chase made his third Sunday “Bad” Movies appearance in The Fanatic. He had previously been seen in Freelancers (week 14) and The Marine (week 30).
• This was also the third time John Travolta was a part of the Sunday “Bad” Movies. He was in Perfect (week 195) and Battlefield Earth (week 275).
• Andrew Foott-Stephens was in Sharknado (week 190) and The Fanatic.
• Finally, The Fanatic saw the return of Rene Michelle Aranda after appearing in 2 Lava 2 Lantula (week 290).
• Have you seen The Fanatic? Have you listened to Stan? Have you seen the music video for Stan? What did you think about it? Do you like obsessive fan stories? Let me know on Twitter or in the comments.
• If there’s a movie that you think I should watch for the Sunday “Bad” Movies, let me know about it in the comments or on Twitter. I like to discover new movies and there’s no better way to do that than with the help of other people.
• Take a moment to check out Sunday “Bad” Movies on Instagram. I promise, it might be worth it.
• Let me cut to the chase here. Next week’s movie is called Not Another Not Another Movie. You probably haven’t heard of it. I picked it up on DVD a while back, thinking it would be perfect for the Sunday “Bad” Movies. Having seen it now, I can say it was a good choice. Please join me next week as I write about whatever I write about it. Come on back now, you hear?