By Jimmy Draper

IF SHE HASN'T done so already, Britney Spears might want to consider sending Ashlee Simpson a sympathy card. In October, just as the public was taking its hatred of Mrs. Federline to a new extreme – for committing the cardinal sins of, uh, "marrying down" and eating Cheetos – Simpson appeared on Saturday Night Live and, one backing-track mishap and impromptu jig later, gave Spears an indefinite hiatus from her reigning status as music's most reviled star. By the time Jessica's little sis got booed for her halftime performance at last month's Orange Bowl, Spears probably could've done anything short of give birth to the Antichrist (or at least another greatest-hits package) and still not come close to evoking the ire Simpson did with her ill-fated SNL appearance.

Indeed, the backlash against Simpson has been swift, severe, and entirely disproportionate to her so-called crime. Before you could say "acid reflux," a clip of the incident circulated, to much derision, around the Internet. People started petitions to convince her to change careers. A group called HOPE (Horrified Observers of Pedestrian Entertainment) formed to offer people the opportunity to exchange their copies of Simpson's triple-platinum debut, Autobiography (Geffen), for Elvis Costello albums. "Why Is This Woman Still a Star?" asked the Jan. 6 cover of New York's Daily News, while the perpetually smug-mugged Jay Leno quipped, "I guess you know they had two problems during the Orange Bowl halftime show: Kelly Clarkson's mic wasn't working, and Ashlee Simpson's was." To say Simpson has become a popular punch line would be an understatement.

But why, when young female stars get publicly ridiculed on a daily basis, has the reaction to Simpson been so particularly nasty? After all, using a backing track is a common practice to bolster live vocals in genres ranging from pop to hip-hop, and outright lip-synching isn't even entirely unheard of. (It was reported by fans that on her recent tour, for instance, Dolly Parton admittedly mouthed the words to some of her songs.) Besides, anyone who bought Autobiography after watching the first season of MTV's The Ashlee Simpson Show couldn't have been surprised, much less cared, that Simpson needed vocal assistance. From its footage of meetings with other songwriters to strategy sessions with the label, the reality series made no attempt to hide that her career is prefabricated.

No, the lip-synching backlash didn't come from fans who suddenly felt duped. Instead, it's been driven largely by people who never liked – and would never like – Simpson in the first place. The SNL snafu simply allowed these people to further rage against the teen machine by making her a symbol of that most detested product of the music industry, the manufactured star. But does it matter that she never gained credibility by slogging her way through tiny rock clubs? That she may not possess the most technically proficient voice? That hit doctors helped her write Autobiography? That her fans are predominantly young girls? Not unless you're the sort of person who considers Simpson more "pedestrian" than a bore like Costello, a rock-establishment dinosaur who, for many, continues to represent some sort of ideal.

This is exactly why the backlash has been so brutal. By straying from the so-called fake and feminized realm of pop music to make a rock album, Simpson and her prefab persona threaten to sully the supposedly authentic rock pantheon – a canon that, despite the inclusion of a few women, largely remains the domain of men like Robert Plant, Bob Dylan, and Jack White. As a result, Simpson's detractors have maligned her as a talentless interloper in rock. Rather than come right out and say that, though, they mostly complain that she's unworthy of attention because she can't sing well – as if the wounded-boy warbles of "rock saviors" White and Conor Oberst are somehow more palatable and artful than Simpson's vocals. Such accusations merely distract from the fact that many people hate her for daring to crash rock's boy-clique culture.

Given such relentless attacks, it was refreshing to read a review of Autobiography last fall that took Simpson's SNL appearance with a grain of salt. In the Nov. 12 issue of the Village Voice, Mikael Wood approached the gaffe with the appropriate sense of humor when he wrote that the "only thing Ashlee Simpson did wrong ... was failing to flip off the audience and stage dive onto their heads as soon as her drummer punched whichever button he wasn't supposed to punch."

Indeed, Simpson owes no apologies. After all, contrary to what you probably heard, Autobiography is one of 2004's best albums, establishing her as someone unafraid to express all the chaos, confusion, and contradictions that are part of becoming an adult. To these ears, there's as much emotional resonance in a song like Simpson's "Love Makes the World Go Round" – with lines like "Hold on, it's tragic / Stumbling through all this static," sung in her rasping, Courtney Love-like howl and wrapped in sky-high hooks – as anything by hip-hopper du jour Kanye West or indie-rock cause célèbre the Arcade Fire. Factor in Simpson's immense charm and her wonderfully punked-out, work-in-progress performances, and it's even more maddeningly apparent that she's been maligned simply for not fitting many people's ill-conceived idea of a rock star.

So rather than make excuses or amends for SNL when she comes to San Jose this month on her first headlining tour, let's hope Simpson continues to sing, shout, holler, and scream herself hoarse just to piss off the haters. Because, really, what's more rock 'n' roll than that?

Ashlee Simpson performs Feb. 22, 7 p.m., San Jose State University, Event Center Arena, Seventh St. and E. San Carlos, San Jose. $29.50-$39.50. www.ticketmaster.com. MTV's The Ashlee Simpson Show airs Wednesdays at 10:30 p.m.