Despite the telling lyrics “Forever I'm here for you, you're here for me” Mattel has insisted that their 2008 animation Barbie & the Diamond Castle is not the cottage core lesbian romance we hoped it was. The film centres around two young female ‘friends’ who survive subsistently through poverty together in their small woodland cottage, through songwriting, gardening, and adventure. With their tension-filled inside jokes, tender “Two Voices, One Song” and “Connected” duets, overuse of the term “best friend”, and an outright rejection of hot twin princes, it’s almost too difficult to not see this animation through a queer lens. Nevertheless, hearts have been broken by Mattel’s statement over these beloved cottagecore lesbians…but the company remains suspiciously quiet on Ken, Barbie’s boyfriend‘s, sexuality.
