Judge Judy’s Healing Powers
I first noticed the Judge Judy healing phenomenon in 2018. I was teaching an art class at a skilled nursing facility in Burbank when I asked the nurse to help gather patients for the class. She replied, “Oh, you picked the wrong time for your activity. 3:00 is Judge Judy time. That’s sacred.”
Sure enough, no one came to class. Instead, patients gathered in the entertainment room in front of a large screen TV to watch Judge Judy. The case involved a woman suing her ex-boyfriend for refusal to repay a car loan. The ex-boyfriend claimed the money was a gift causing a woman in a wheelchair to yell, “Liar!” When Judge Judy called the ex-boyfriend “a moron,” the patients erupted in laughter. The girlfriend won the case and everyone applauded.
The nurse told me this was a daily occurrence. “They all have TV’s in their rooms but they want to watch it on the big screen. This is their happy time. It brings them together.”
I learned not to schedule an art class during Judge Judy (or bingo). I began asking patients what they liked about Judge Judy. “She tells it like it is,” said Christina, a Latino woman recovering from a stroke. A black woman with diabetes named Juanita told me, “She’s not afraid to put the young folks in their place.” An Armenian man battling Parkinson’s disease said, “She’s got her own lie detector inside her head.” This made him smile.
