English-speaking audiences are most familiar with Flemish actor Mo Bakker for the three Claus Family movies:
Die Familie Claus 1 (2020): Christmas-hating teenager Jules discovers that his grandfather is Santa Claus, about to retire and expecting him to take over the family job
Die Familie Claus 2 (2021): Jules goes on a trial run to grant a little girl's holiday wish. Plus the kids try to fix up Mom with her best friend, not realizing that he is gay and has a husband.
Die Familie Claus 3 (2022): Jules and his sister Noor work together to fix the mess Grandpa made of the gift-delivery. Plus Mom's new boyfriend Jeff (Kurt Rogiers) drops towel.
Throughout, Jules is heavily queer-coded, with an interest in musclemen and no romantic interest in girls: he keeps partnering with girls, but they are always relatives or just friends. Although there are no undeniable queer codes, no boyfriends, or "I'm gay" statements, the series, and especially the first, appears every year on lists of "The Best LGBTQ Holiday Movies."
But what about actor Mo Bakker. Surely he wasn't cast because he was gay. At age 14, he may not even have known. So let's check to see if he is out now.
Mo was born in 2006, son of Belgian actor Kuno Bakker, who played a gay guy in Feast (2022).
Older brother Kes, also an actor, has 12 credits listed on the IMDB, including the teen drama High Tide, available to stream on Netflix. He plays a gay character, falls in love with a dude, and drops towel.
Mo's acting career begins with August (2014), a short about a boy with a girlfriend. He has several other projects listed, with plot synopses and trailers only in Flemish, including:
Niet Schieten (Don't Shoot, 2018): A boy is dying, and his grandfather feels guilty.
The tv series Please Love Me (Zie miej graag, 2017-20): A divorced woman is "trying to put her life back together." Mo and his brother Kes play her sons.
Sisyphus at Work (2021): A film director is dying.
Finn's Heel (Finn's hiel, 2022): Two boys (Mo, Brecht Dael) bond over boxing lessons, and hug. This one sounds gay.
The teen tv series wtFOCK (2023), about students in a prestigious high school in Antwerp. There are gay guys in the cast (who make out naked in the pool), but Mo plays a heterosexual athlete who gets his girlfriend pregnant.
Not a lot of gay content here. Let's check Mo's Instagram to see if he is gay in real life.
I'm always jealous of Europeans, who can jet to my top 10 favorite countries (outside the U.S.) in a couple of hours. Here Mo and his boyfriend are cuddling on a raft in Nicosia, Cyprus: five hours from Brussels, 14 hours from Minnesota.
More after the break
