Hal in V.R. 6: Wave Bye-Bye to the Bureaucrat
Wave Bye-Bye to the Bureaucrat remains Mario’s favorite of all their late father’s entertainments, possibly because of its unhip earnestness. Though to Mario he always maintains it’s basically goo, Hal secretly likes it, too, the cartridge, and likes to project himself imaginatively into the ex-bureaucrat’s character on the leisurely drive home toward ontological erasure.
Context
Filial reception split: Mario loves the earnest one openly; Hal loves it secretly and lies to Mario about it ("basically goo"). And Hal's mode of loving it is projection into a character driving toward "ontological erasure" — the film's own gloss ("getting fired is called 'termination,' as in ontological erasure," pp. 687-688) fused with deLint's "never quite occurred." The cartridge does self-description work for Hal that nothing live in the scene can.