If you haven’t seen Fresh, the new Hulu original starring Sebastian Stan, you definitely should. I would suggest watching it before reading this article, though, because there will be spoilers!
Fresh follows the story of a woman, Noa, casually dating who thinks she has finally found a good man. He’s smart, funny, and would be perfect…if perfect means he has a secret family while selling women for meat, that is.
Noa’s first date in the movie is repulsive. He only talks about himself, takes her food, and (to make matters worse) when she tries to let him down easy he calls her ugly and tells her he never liked her in the first place. He is the classic dating app mistake. However, as every woman knows, no matter how bad your worst date story is it can always be worse. Steve doesn’t seem to be worse though. He takes her out to a nice place, is interested in what she has to say, and overall acts like a gentleman during their whole date. Noa’s horrible experience before Steve makes it easy for her to trust him even when she barely knows him.
In order for his plan to kidnap her to work, Steve needs to be attractive. He needs to appear as a traditional dream man. Noa goes on a trip with him willingly after just a few weeks of dating because of these traits and who could blame her? Steve juxtaposed with her date at the beginning of the movie makes the decision to go on a trip with him a no-brainer.
The casting of Sebastian Stan for the role of Steve was genius. Picking an attractive man to play a killer in a movie centered around the difficulties for women in dating drives home how terrifying this movie is. I believe that choosing him for this role emphasizes how easily appearances can be deceiving.
Media coverage and fan response to Fresh prove this. The media glorification of the actor’s physical appearance over the meaning of the movie shows how easy it is to fall into Steve’s trap. TikTok and Twitter users post the famous “dancing scene” with captions like “Sebastian Stan can do whatever he wants to me.” I, too, watched the movie because I saw post after post about the actor rather than the content.
Enjoying a good thriller is always a fun Friday night activity, but maybe with this one, we should focus on the warning signs. Unfortunately, stranger danger doesn’t go away as an adult