About

Donald Sutherland Screaming and Pointing refers to an image of actor Donald Sutherland with a scary, wide-eyed look on his face as his arm and finger are extended outward, taken from the 1978 film Invasion of the Body Snatchers. The frame saw use as a reaction image and image macro meme template in the late 2000s and early 2010s. It also saw a spike in use following Sutherland's death in June 2024.

Origin

The scene comes from the end of 1978's Invasion of the Body Snatchers when Matthew Bennell, played by actor Donald Sutherland, emits the characteristic high-pitched scream of the duplicates (shown below).

It's unclear when the image of Sutherland screaming began seeing use in memes, though there are early examples of the image seeing use in forums in the late 2000s. For example, a post dated May 3rd, 2007, in the elitepvpers^[1] forum shows user CampionE using an image macro of the scene with the caption Pwned as an avatar (shown below).

Spread

The still of Sutherland continued seeing use in image macro memes over the following several years, usually with captions mocking someone for being an outsider. The meme creation site Imgflip hosts several examples of the meme with such captions.

For example, an example created by user Jewelmen10^[2] was created to mock Twitter users with Hexagonal Profile Pictures (shown below, left). An example created by user TrentaIcedTea6PacketsofSplenda^[3] was created to reference mask-wearing during the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Resurgence Upon Donald Sutherland's Death

On June 20th, 2024, Donald Sutherland passed away at the age of 88.^[4] His passing led to the creation of memes using the frame as a tribute to the actor.

For example, on June 21st, Memedroid user Lindsyoung^[5] posted a Meme Heaven edit with the still (shown below, left). On June 20th, Twitter / X user @ambernoelle^[6] posted the still saying Sutherland should have won an Oscar for his performance in the scene, gaining over 170 retweets and 1,900 likes in one day (shown below, right).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References