Historically, the bowl cut was popular among common European and Asian men, being an easy, neat cut done by a non-professional. Indeed, it was done by putting a cooking pot of a fit size to the level of ears, and all hair below the rim was cut or shaved off. In some cultures it was a normal type of haircut. In other cultures the bowl cut was viewed as an attribute of poverty, signifying that the wearer could not afford to visit a barber. In 1431, the records of her
trial maliciously mention that her hair was "shaved round like... a fashionable young man." File:Duke of Bedford.JPG|Detail from the
Bedford Hours (1410–30). File:Jan van Eyck - The Virgin of Chancellor Rolin (detail) - WGA7603.jpg|Detail from the
Madonna of Chancellor Rolin (detail) (1435). File:Jean Fouquet - Etienne Chevalier with St. Stephen - detail 01.jpg|Detail from the
Melun Diptych (1452). File:Cathédrale de Strasbourg chapelle Ste Catherine statue de Jeanne d’Arc-5.jpg|
Joan of Arc sporting the characteristic bowl cut of the first half of the 15th century. Sculpture created in 1937,
Strasbourg Cathedral. File:Aleksander Gierymski - Peasant from Bronowice - MNK II-a-600 - National Museum Kraków.jpg|A 19th century Polish peasant with a bowl cut. File:Ukposter.jpg|A 1920s
Soviet Ukrainian poster; the man on the left sports a bowl cut. In the United States, the bowl cut was never particularly popular. At least as far back as the 1980s, the cut has been ridiculed by many. It is often mocked via internet memes. By 2015, the hairstyle was uncommon enough that its use by mass murderer
Dylann Roof was considered mildly noteworthy. The
Anti-Defamation League has documented its
metonymic use by young
white supremacists, among whom it represents Roof and
his crimes in particular, and white supremacist ideology in general. For example, a neo-Nazi group named itself the "Bowl Patrol" after Roof's bowl cut hairstyle; that group remained active as of a July 2020 exposé in the
Huffington Post, five years after Roof's Charleston church shooting. ==See also==