“Listen, there were abs and there was comedy - it’s iconic,” Melissa, now a 44-year-old mom of three living on Long Island, told Vox in a recent interview. Real World: Homecoming, a new weekly Paramount+ series starring Melissa and the rest of her New Orleans housemates, is trying to right those wrongs and allow the cast to reassess their experiences. But in its 33-season run, it could also lean on stereotypes - like the Angry Black Woman - to tell those stories. The Real World will go down as one of the more progressive shows in television history for documenting the lives of gay people, people of color, and other underrepresented groups. Two years later, they were onscreen enemies, and Melissa was pigeonholed as “The Angry Black Woman.” Melissa and Julie had left their season of The Real World: New Orleans as best friends. Then, in a separate confessional, Melissa uttered a phrase that’s become a part of MTV canon: “You go messing with my money, you go messing with my emotions.” “You got your smug little smile and think it’s all cute - you’re a backstabber and you’re a liar.” We’re not friends, because I find you to be very dishonest,” Melissa Beck (née Howard) said to Julie Stoffer the last time the two were on TV together on MTV’s Battle of the Sexes in 2003. “I just want you to know that I don’t like you.
