He is getting called on far too many ticky-tack fouls -- the kind of call that could go either way, but in his case, it's putting him in foul difficulty.
The bad fake beards, cartoonish props, and general ticky-tack are politics in the guise of aesthetics, demonstrating the useful point that much can (and should) be made out of little.
He sets all sorts of influences, from barbershop to ticky-tick dance music against that idiom, to underscore character and crystallize the period (1903- '14).