If a manufactured pop star's career takes a nose-dive in the middle of the forest, will anyone hear it, or much less care?

It was a shame to watch Saturday Night Live this weekend and see someone who proclaims to be a singer miming on a live show. Ashlee Simpson, the brunette, square-jawed sister of diva Jessica Simpson, experienced a technical malfunction on stage that exposed her as a lip-syncher without the chops to roll with the punches of live television.

To be sure, we at The State News do not hold a vested interest in the musical stylings of the Simpson sisters. In fact, the world would probably be better without the sensationalist, paparazzi nature of their stardom. But the larger question at hand is what we as consumers should expect and demand from the entertainment industry.

For the sake of the tedious pop music industry, we hope that a snafu like Simpson faced Saturday never happens again. Whether you're a fan or not, whether you find it simple fun or contrived hackery, performers like Simpson are proof that audiences are not taken seriously. Expecting a performance and receiving pantomime is hardly the standard that we should accept in all realms of entertainment.

We're hopefully avoiding the fine line of hipster snobbery with this editorial, but we don't believe that the watershed moments of popular culture should be a bared breast at the Super Bowl or a repeated tape loop on live television. When fraudulent acts are exposed for what they are, in moments of ham-fisted carelessness, it reflects poorly on the culture that we profess to pursuing for our pleasure. Saturday made Ashlee Simpson look bad, made Saturday Night Live look bad and perhaps worst, again exposed the sentiment that in "show biz" - as the insiders call it - the least important opinion is that of consumers.

We should expect better from what we consider to be entertainment than what is presented before us, lip-synching or not. It's a rotten industry, and only our level of expectations can change that.