Beyoncé Loses to ‘Carpool Karaoke’ in Head-Scratching Emmys Snub
It turns out that many members of the Television Academy are not part of the Beyhive. On a night when many expected Beyoncé to take home the Emmy in the Variety Special (Pre-Recorded) category, James Corden won instead for “Carpool Karaoke: When Corden Met McCartney Live from Liverpool” on Saturday.
Beyoncé was nominated for her Netflix concert film and documentary hybrid “Homecoming: A Film by Beyoncé” and also had nods for directing and writing the special. She lost the directing category to “Springsteen on Broadway” and the writing category to Hannah Gadsby’s “Nannette.” She was previously nominated for her visual album “Lemonade” in 2016 and for her HBO special “On the Run Tour: Beyoncé and Jay-Z” in 2015.
Beyoncé is now zero for eight at the Emmy Awards.
“Homecoming” combines footage from her April 2018 concert at Coachella — in which Beyoncé led more than 100 singers, dancers, steppers, and brass band members through “the greatest performance in the modern history of music festivals” — and behind-the-scenes footage that offers an intimate look at the artist herself and how she painstakingly prepared for the performance after recent motherhood.
It’s been hailed as one of the definitive pop culture moments of the century, and IndieWire Staff Writer Tambay Obenson points out its contribution to the conversation of black identity by “incorporating quintessential artifacts of black cultural legacy and pride.”
Of her competitors, The Boss himself was seen as her most likely rival at the Emmys. Netflix made “Springsteen on Broadway” available mere hours after Bruce Springsteen left the stage of his Broadway residency last December. Longtime videographer Thom Zimny directed the special, which is a no-frills look at the performance in its entirety, and won an Emmy for his efforts. The Netflix special is just Bruce and only Bruce speaking and singing. It’s the bare Boss, and IndieWire Senior Film Critic David Ehrlich called it “the single best thing that Netflix has ever done” at the time.
Also in competition was the groundbreaking comedy and social commentary act “Hannah Gadsby: Nanette” and the special “Wanda Sykes: Not Normal.”
