Marisa Hirschfield is a musical comedy writer. She can easily make you cry, but would rather make you laugh. She hates self-definitions, still, she describes herself as a ‘character.’ \u201cI hate thinking of who I am\u2026but I love to narrativize my life.\u201d
\n\u201cShe is effortlessly funny, and a great writing partner,\u201d Mira Ho-Chen, Marisa\u2019s co-head writer for the Princeton Triangle Club, a 135-year old musical comedy club at Princeton University, describes her. \u201cShe\u2019s good in a room and good at making people feel thoughtful and valued. When she talks to people, it can look like she knows for years, but she had in reality just met them one minute prior.\u201d
\nIndia Brown, one of Hirschfield\u2019s closest friends, described Hirschfield endearingly. \u201cShe has a lot of intelligence and sophistication, is funny and down to earth, and is stupid in a good way, in an unpretentious way. She\u2019s somebody you\u2019d want to experience things with.\u201d
\nHirschfield illustrates her personality through a story about swimming in the ocean with a friend. Despite rough water and red-flag conditions, she was a strong swimmer. A lifeguard checked on her, and she waved him off, signaling she could swim fine. He misinterpreted the gesture, concluding that she was drowning despite her nonchalance.
\n\u201cTwo lifeguards on either arm began to non-consensually rescue me while everyone on the beach was applauding.\u201d She insists she didn\u2019t need the help and the entire time was so confused. The moment was humiliating, but Hirschfield believes it summarizes who she is, or at least how she views herself. \u201cI love describing my life as funny and dramatic, it makes it more manageable and fun.\u201d
\nBrown laughs when recounting Hirschfield\u2019s unneeded rescue. \u201cMarisa is a character, she is singular and unique and on her own plane of being. But that story with the lifeguards, I just laugh, because there are paradoxes to Marisa. She is very mature, but is also very fresh to the world. I think she\u2019s very self aware of that fact, too. She aims to be so aware of the world, that there\u2019s many things she\u2019s completely unaware of. She\u2019s aware on a cerebral level of so much, but not so much in her actions. With the lifeguards, how does that happen? There\u2019s a certain passivity to her.\u201d
\nBeyond her verbal wit and humor, Hirschfield brings physical comedy along the lines of a sitcom to daily life, largely through her obliviousness to routine chores. \u201cShe is very motivated to pursue her own ambitions and is unconcerned about small things that get in the way of that. She\u2019s actually really terrible at menial tasks.\u201d Brown recalls a dinner party at a friend’s house where they had to clean up afterward \u201cas is was our duty\u201d, and Hirschfield struggled with the basics. She would grab a single knife and placing it on the counter instead of in the sink instead of multiple plates. It stemmed from genuine confusion rather than a lack of willingness. \u201cShe excels at so many things, but simple chores\u2026not so much.\u201d
\nStill, Hirschfield is hardly detached from reality, approaching life and social justice with serious care. Growing up in a Jewish home on Manhattan’s Upper West Side and attending a K-12 private school focused on ethical culture in the Bronx, she developed an acute awareness of her sheltered upbringing and a boundless curiosity about people from different backgrounds. “Since I was five years old, I have always believed one should work in the public interest.”
\nAs a comedy writer, she harbors doubts about whether humor is an inherent force for good. “Comedy is helpful for a purpose of levity when the world feels serious. But in comedy, you can also be restricted to preaching to the choir. I don\u2019t want to just tell feminist jokes in a room of feminists,” she explains.
\nIn practice, however, Hirschfield does tell feminist jokes to feminist audiences and beyond since she founded a campus club called \u2018Women Aren\u2019t Funny.\u2019 According to Ho-Chen, traditional writers’ rooms, including the Princeton Triangle Club, can sometimes skew male, leading to situations where men decide what is funny on their own. “The bigger comedy organizations skew more normative, so when Marisa pitched a really funny joke about Gloria Steinem, the women loved it, but the guys wouldn\u2019t get it and would shut it down\u201d Ho-Chen explained. \u201c\u2018Women Aren\u2019t Funny\u2019 helps carve out space for women and other marginalized voices in comedy to produce headlines, stand-up shows, and short films.\u201d
\nHo-Chen reflects on her co-writer’s approach: “Jokes just come to her, and she is very dedicated to getting jokes right.” Hirschfield is indeed committed to the craft of comedy and is equally dedicated to creating space for others. She may struggle with washing knives, but Hirschfield is sharp enough to carve out a whole new space for comedy on her own terms.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Marisa Hirschfield is a musical comedy writer. She can easily make you cry, but would rather make you laugh. She hates self-definitions, still, she describes herself as a ‘character.’ \u201cI hate thinking of who I am\u2026but I love to narrativize my life.\u201d \u201cShe is effortlessly funny, and a great writing partner,\u201d Mira Ho-Chen, Marisa\u2019s co-head<\/p>\n