Here's a tale as old as the talkies, and it never gets less delicious. The makers of the Tamil film Dorothy have reportedly filed a defamation suit against netizens who opposed the film, and in the same breath of news cycle, director Karthik Subbaraj has been heard holding forth on free speech and democracy. I've seen some two-reelers in my time, but this double bill has a plot twist M. Night Shyamalan would send back for being too much.

Let's lay out the story so far, such as it's confirmed, which is to say reportedly. The film drew opposition online, the usual chorus of people with keyboards and opinions, and instead of doing what filmmakers have done since Griffith put on a toga, which is ignore the noise and let the work speak, the makers supposedly lawyered up. A defamation suit against people who criticized your picture is the cinematic equivalent of a critic getting a bad review and challenging the reviewer to a duel. It's thin-skinned, it's expensive, and it tells the audience everything they need to know about whether the film can stand on its own.

Then there's Subbaraj, talking up free speech and democracy. Free speech for whom, one wonders. Free speech for the filmmaker, apparently, and court summons for everybody else. That's a fine little arrangement if you can get it, and it's the same arrangement we've watched Hollywood chase for a decade now. Speech is sacred when it praises you and defamatory when it doesn't. In my day we called that being a sore loser, and we said it to your face at the soda fountain after the show.

Here's what the studios in town never learned, from Burbank to Chennai. An audience that feels despised does not buy a ticket to be despised at $18 a pop. You can lecture them, sue them, scold them on the press tour, and call them names in the trades, and they will simply stay home with TCM and a bowl of popcorn, where nobody has ever once served them papers for saying they didn't care for the third act. The customer is always right is a cliché because it's true, and the customer opting out is the only review that can't be litigated.

A filmmaker with a good film doesn't sue his critics. Billy Wilder read his bad reviews, poured himself a drink, and went back to writing pictures people actually wanted to see. That's the tradition, and it built the business these people are currently setting fire to while giving speeches about how flammable the audience is.

So we'll see how Dorothy fares, both at the box office and, if the reports hold up, against its own audience in a courtroom. My money says the courtroom fight costs more than the marketing budget and accomplishes less, which would make it the most normal thing about the whole production. Say what you want about the makers of Dorothy, and reportedly they'll subpoena you for it, but they've given us the season's best dark comedy without shooting a single frame I'd want to watch.