Clara Bow's Work (Lewis Jacobs again )

[Terrance]

Some film historians, like Lewis Jacobs and David Robinson, have argued
that early silent films revolved around "characteristically working
class settings," and expressed the interests of the poor in their
struggles with the rich and powerful. Other scholars maintain that early
movies drew largely upon conventions, stock characters, and routines
derived from vaudeville, popular melodrama, Wild West shows, comic
strips, and other forms of late nineteenth century popular
entertainment. Given the fact               thousands of films were
released during the silent era and relatively few have survived, it is
dangerous to generalize about movie content. Nevertheless, certain
statements about these films do seem warranted.

The silent screen offered vivid glimpses of urban tenements and ethnic
ghettoes; the screen was filled with gangsters, loan sharks, drug
addicts, and panderers and provided a graphic record of "how the other
half lives."

In addition, many early films were laced with anti-authority themes,
poking fun at bumbling cops, corrupt politicians, and intrusive
upper-class reformers. Highly physical slapstick comedy offered a
particularly potent vehicle of social criticism, spoofing the
pretensions of the wealthy and presenting sympathetic portraits of the
poor. Mack Sennett, one of the most influential directors of silent
comedy, later recalled
the themes of his films: "I especially liked the reduction of authority
to absurdity, the notion that sex could be funny, and the bold insults
hurled at Pretension."

Many films of the early silent era dealt with gender relations.


http://college.hmco.com/history/readerscomp/women/html/wm_034100_sheppardtown.htm

http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/historyonline/hollywood_history.cfm