From the Wikipedia entry for Solo Cup Company:
The red plastic cups are notably used in American college and university games such as beer pong and flip cup. This usage is referenced in Toby Keith's song "Red Solo Cup." The red party cup outsells the blue variety by a wide margin.Here's a Slate article on the subject:
Should you doubt the cup’s cultural significance, I would point you toward a brand new Toby Keith song titled “Red Solo Cup.” The song opens with these lyrics: “Red Solo cup is the best receptacle for barbecues, tailgates, fairs, and festivals. And you, sir, do not have a pair of testicles if you prefer drinking from a glass.” The tune’s admirably forthright chorus: “I love you, red Solo cup. I fill you up. Proceed to party. Proceed to party.”Should you doubt the cup’s cultural significance, I would point you toward Miss America, Kira Kazantsev.
That cup percussion business wasn't Kazantsev's invention. It's an internet craze (I just found out this morning). Here's a popular iteration:
Posts
33 comments:
Red Solo C-cup.
Didn't Anna Kendrick's performance in "Pitch Perfect" with a yellow plastic reusable cup get this started?
Yup my daughter loves that movie and practiced and red solo cup is on her play list
A country riven by 400 years of racial oppression and who gets to be Miss America? A generic blonde white woman. And what's her cause? "Kira's platform is focused on protecting women from domestic violence." Again: generic. Also realize that domestic violence is currently colored by the Ray Rice elevator incident and you can surmise "domestic violence" is code for angry black males.
Black actresses are getting arrested for simply living life in public and Kira does not have a word to say about it. A white blonde plays with a red plastic cup and is adored; a black woman drinking from a red plastic cup in public would no doubt be stopped by the police for possible public intoxication.
A blonde white woman is selected to be America's Princess and the country looks the other way from its racist history. All is safe, white people: our American Princess is white. Young black women, look at her example and learn: you can be a princess, too, but that is 'princess' with a lower-case 'p' for you.
Imagine if Kira had the bravery to use the Miss America stage to speak out against the 400 years of racial oppression: further imagine that her cause was to spread information about the rightness of reparations. Would she still be our Princess? Of course not: she will not rock the boat of the Cruise Ship called Supremacy.
It is turtles all the way down...
Miss America Keith Richards playing "Happy" with Red Solo Cups @0:08 et seq.
Betamax beat me to my first joke so I will simply observe that a Solo cup is an emblem of the independence and spirit of the modern woman.
Fishes and bicycles to all.
--David
That's what you get when white styrofoam becomes the forgotten cup.
And notice the video that Althouse has chosen to attach to this post: two privileged white girls playing with cups, confident that all will go their way in this life. Observe the house they are in: granite countertops, tasteful paint and planters, everything in its rightful place. I'm sure they know some black girls at school. Maybe not friends, but they are in some of their classes, and that counts, doesn't it?
It is turtles all the way down...
Miss New York won three years in a row? That seems suspicious.
That talent description sounds ridiculous too.
Miss Arkansas apparently got 2nd runner up.
"Didn't Anna Kendrick's performance in "Pitch Perfect" with a yellow plastic reusable cup get this started?"
No. The video I posted is older. The article I linked to talks about the craze. Kendrick picked up on it.
Wait. No. I'm wrong. The article I linked to says:
"The Cup Song movement was made popular by Pitch Perfect, a movie that came out in 2012 about a college singing group. It stars Twilight's Anna Kendrick and Bridesmaids' Rebel Wilson. During Kendrick's audition for the singing group, she sits on the floor with a solo cup, clapping and beating rhythmically on it while she sings "When I'm Gone." The song is from 1937 by Mainer’s Mountaineers, but the version Kendrick sang is by Lulu and the Lampshades."
No, wait.
I was right the first time. The video I put up predates Pitch Perfect. It was uploaded on Dec 21, 2011.
Kendrick popularized it in that movie.
Sitting on the floor, singing and playing with a cup was talent enough to allow the contestant from New York to earn the crown? She must have aced all of the other events to be able to phone this "talent" in and still win.
Bet all the other girls are royally pissed!
I really don't care either way (to me, none of this matters) but those the do care, they really care and this must be quite the slap in the face for them.
The use of the red cup seems to highlight campus boozing.
If her issue is sexual assault...
That video was thoroughly charming! And the two girls were quite good singers!
"Music self-played is happiness self-made!"
(Quoted from a Robert Crumb comic somewhere. I don't know if the quote is original to Crumb or if he was quoting another.)
Re: Music self-played is happiness self-made!"
Something blacks have known throughout their history, but whites act like they discovered it.
It is turtles all the way down...
I did not think Kira from NY was pretty enough to win so I was very surprised she won. But I only saw the last ten minutes of the pageant after the NFL game was over and myaybe the camera angles in those last ten minutes were not complimentary to her? But yeah, I call it suspicious too.
Not that Althouse needs any backing up, but here is Anna Kendrick on Letterman talking about watching a 'cup song' video (that had gone viral) and teaching herself the cup song that producers of the movie "Pitch Perfect" asked her to perform in the movie.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vP1Z5tmww4
My daughter (now 14) taught herself the song at age 11. She was watching the pageant last night. When Miss New York did the cup song as her 'talent' (after a contestant sang an opera and another danced) remarked "that's a talent?"
I've been attracted to blonde women for forty plus years, but somehow Kira K's look seems somehow off a bit. Is it just me?
Not to pick nits here, but those are blue cups. And, that's a duet , not a solo. Other than that, easy on the eyes.
This reminded me of one of the 'Sh*t southern women say' videos.
Some rich Russian energy oilgarch probably bought it for her like they did a small Yacht and the Brooklyn Nets, all bought for some small change. Choosing a Red cup is so Russian. That alone gives it away.
It's New York City, Jake.
Pitch Perfect finished filming in early December 2011, so her performance predates the posted video.
Anna Kendrick, a self-confessed nerd, saw it on Reddit and suggested that it be used for her audition scene. Another song was to be used in the screenplay. According to a family member of mine who was on set, she did it perfectly for the first take.
She did a version of the song for a single and video, here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmSbXsFE3l8
Miss America picked red, which has the boozing connotation. The girls in the old video chose red, possibly to look more wholesome.
I mean, the girls chose blue!
I thought it was kind of charming that a Miss America contestant sat on the floor cross-legged with a plastic cup as part of the talent portion.
Good for her.
It was an exhibition of childish indifference. When I was a child, we played with silver-colored jacks, and whatever-color ball was available. Then I grew up, and put away childish things.
I see 2 girls and 1 cup.
betamax, FTW.
Blacks invented cups.
Everything whitey drinks is via a black-inspired mechanism!!
And has been for 400..er..350...er..300..eleventyhundred years!!
Is the Miss America pageant patronizing or empowering? I've lost track of which iteration we are on. Same with porn. Prostitution is still empowering, right, which is why it should be legalized. Or is that because it is a victimless crime. Always playing catch-up, am I.
Alex @ 12:39 pm...
You nasty!!
RC - I call 'em like I see 'em. My mind has not MPAA rating. Sort of like Lenny Bruce, free associating all the time.
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