Yeah, I mean, I admit that Katniss in my head was white, which is a combination of things ranging from harmless (my general disinterest in physical description of characters) to the less harmless (I admit that I do probably default characters to white unless otherwise specified which is food for thought). Whitewashing is a big problem in the industry though so I can understand why people were upset when they felt a role meant for a POC had been given to a white actress.

Oh no I meant Avatar the cartoon which I think was called "The Last Airbender" when it came out as a flop movie by M Night Shyamalan. But it was heavily heavily heavily whitewashed -- and by that I mean all the main characters were played by white people despite the fact that none of them were white in the cartoon (as far as I know anyway, I don't watch it).

Yeah, I think that's definitely true, re: defaulting characters to your race, which is food for thought. (I remember once someone complaining about the casting of Emma Watson as Hermione because Hermione was *clearly* black in the books, since she had bushy brown hair and was described as looking "brown" once in PoA after a summer outside in the sun...O_o). I feel there probably is a tendency to imagine the most familiar, like one imagining American accents for British characters while reading just because that's what one is used to. It's an interesting, complex issue, such subconscious tendencies. IDK, when I read Katniss' description I thought more along the lines of 'Black Irish' for whatever reason, but yeah, I can see how it could be a POC role too. Oh well...

OHHHH yes that Avatar, lol, yes I do remember that now, that was pretty stupid (but it sounds like the whole movie sucked anyway).