One or Two Religious Conservatives at a Time

This weekend I happened to catch one of the more interesting episodes of Split Ends. In case you haven't seen it, Split Ends is a reality show where two hairdressers swap salons for a few days. Most of the time they swap someone from an upscale, hoity-toity salon with someone from a salon somewhere in Podunk. Yeah it's not the best show on TV, but Georgia didn't play this weekend so I needed some fillers.

This particular episode featured a hairdresser from Worcester, MA swapping with someone from Crescent Springs in rural Northern Kentucky. What made this show interesting was the fact that the MA hairdresser did drag, and the KY shop featured prayer several times a day. Talk about a culture clash....

Things started off fine. But Christian returned to the religious shop after lunch in drag, as Crystal Mess. Sparks flew. Heather, the ultrareligious owner freaked out. Get this--she said a salon was no place for a drag queen, and walked out. Now I don't know about you, but if a drag queen doesn't belong in a beauty parlor, I don't know who does.

The next day, all the other hairdressers were told they were not allowed to talk to Christian, who showed up to work sans drag. As an aside, he's adorable in and out of drag. He asked the owners (Heather and her husband, Fred) if he could talk with them. Heather was a bitch. Fred was uptight, but nicer. If you ask me, Heather was probably worried that Fred might play for the other team which looked like a distinct possibility.

On the final day, when the swappers get to run the shop with their rules, Crystal Mess shows up. Heather has a fit, but doesn't walk off. For his "final challenge", Crystal has to do makeovers for two of the dykiest looking softball players you're ever going to see. He agrees, with the condition that he also gets to do a makeover for Fred. The end result with the two girls is amazing--reason enough to watch this admittedly lame show.

Of course, Crystal puts Fred in drag for his makeover, and Heather cries. Then she prays and cries some more. Wah. Crystal takes her wig off, and apologizes to Heather saying he never intended to hurt anyone's feelings, and that it was all in fun. The icing on the cake was when Crystal asked Heather to pray, and all the hairdressers got together in a little prayer circle. What a gay!

The end of the show is Heather coming around to say that Crystal wasn't so bad after all. I don't think she's ready to vote for gay marriage, but she definitely had a dramatic change in perspective. That's the way we'll win our civil rights--one or two religious conservatives at a time.