Have you seen the ads by the credit card company about the difference between the things you can buy with your credit card and the experiences that are priceless? The purpose of the ads is to persuade you that things with a price tag are worth buying because those things can create a priceless experience.

Joe Versus the Volcano is about the opposite effect. It is a money story about the high cost of trading the priceless for something that comes with a price tag.

What People Do For Money

Traditional stories are full of examples of people who traded the priceless for a price.

The Bible has many such stories of what people do for money and things that money can buy.

Esau traded his birthright as the first-born son for a bowl of lentils. How much is a bowl of lentils worth? You can put a price tag on that. You cannot put a price tag on your status as the first-born son in a patriarchal society.

In the best known example of all, Judas betrayed Jesus for thirty pieces of silver. What is the price tag of any life? What is the tradeoff between honor and money?

A Money Story About Tradeoffs

If you can get past the over-the-top silly stuff in Joe Versus The Volcano, particularly about orange soda guzzling Polynesians, who roll out a huge red carpet on a wheel, while eating grapes on a South Pacific atoll that has never seen a grapevine, and mocking their hired hero with preposterous antics, all the while singing and dancing a Hebrew hora, you will see a money story about people who have made tradeoffs of the priceless in exchange for something with a price tag.

What People Do For Money

How much is health worth? Joe trades his health for $300 a week.

How much is a life worth? Mr. Granamore is willing to trade Joe’s life for a rare mineral “boobaroo” that comes with a high price tag.

How much is self-respect worth? Angelica trades her self-respect for Daddy’s money, and all the things that Daddy’s money can buy.

How much is preservation of your island and the lives of your people? The Waponis are willing to trade the well-being of their people for orange soda.

These are the tradeoffs between things with a price and things that are truly priceless in the movie.

Some know they have done it. Some haven’t. But all pay a high price for trading the priceless for something with a price tag.

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