This is a hilarious comedy. It's definitely escapist in the sense that it is created for American Great Depression audience goers to pay a quarter come into the theater and forget their woes. W.C. Fields is acting in the style more of Laurel and Hardy, that Homer Simpson American everyman who is just a shade dumber than the ordinary working man but close enough so that the average movie goer can see himself in this character rather than some slapstick Charlie Chaplin type persona. The comedy also in that more ordinary man vibe comes from the dialogue and frustrations in everyday scenes rather than extraordinary stunts that are funny.
This movie lives in the marketable space of poor man, working man protagonist, just trying to get a good night’s rest and having to contend with the general issues of life to do it. However those "real life" issues are not very true in the sense that this man's problems are far more mundane and comical in nature rather than actually highlighting the issues of poverty in the way foreign films do. Like we said, everything is being diluted so if there is a social message, it’s almost completely sugar coated by the gag and spectacle over it. You see the subtletly in acting style with W.C. fields, he mumbles, and kind of drags his words out as opposed to having this crystal clear machine gun rapid fire pace of delivery like Clark Cable or Jimmy Cagney. This more slouchy, lazy style of vocal performance will lay the way for actors to stutter and stumble and bring that realism to the screen in performances later on.
Overall this is a highly relatable and funny film about an ordinary man just trying to get by, a trope that will come to dominate later stand up and TV sitcoms.