Why do we mock movie scientists when they don lab coats anyway?

[daveblackeye15]

Those lab coats are actually protective against experiments in case something goes wrong and are often part of a set of safety rules that have to be obeyed.

So I never exactly got why reviewers go 'oh a white coat he's gotta be a scientist!'

Now the always bubbling, churning, misty chemistry lab I get why its mocked but not the coat bit.

[2xSlick]

Long answer:
It's not so much the coats themselves, it's that any time a movie has scientists doing science stuff, inevitably the film makers screw it up. You cite the coat as a safety requirement, but the most important safety gear are a pair of safety glasses, which most movie scientists do without. Never mind their penchant for sticking their faces right next to bubbling ooze. And I have never seen a movie lab that even had fume hoods. The coat isn't there to show us the scientist is safe, it's just to show us he is a bumbling scientist that is probably the cause of the current predicament.

Short answer:

[daveblackeye15]

Ah yes, safety goggles and the fume. I guess the problem is I wasn't looking for what they got wrong but I was looking at what they, supposedly, got right.

But still, coats do help safety wise or at least help not get clothing stained. But the scientiest could at least remove them when they leave the lab to head for their desk to write or get killed by the movie's monster.

[Trevor]

My job as film archivist sometimes requires me to wear a lab coat and cotton gloves.

I once went out for lunch and several people laughed at me ~ I only found out later that someone had written CHIEF MAMPARA [mampara=idiot] on the back of my lab coat. 

[Jack]

When I was in auto mechanics class, we had to wear coveralls.  They fit loosely enough that you could take a small snowball, sneak up behind someone, and gently drop it into their pocket.  After a while it would melt and look like they peed their pants 

Okay, back to lab coats now.

[trekgeezer]

Well not exactly on topic, but what always killed me was the High School Science teacher who apparently has a Phd. in everything . Like Ed Kemmer's character in Earth vs. The Spider.

[WingedSerpent]

Well not exactly on topic, but what always killed me was the High School Science teacher who apparently has a Phd. in everything . Like Ed Kemmer's character in Earth vs. The Spider.

Or..they are somehow able to get their hands on something you think would take government clearance to get.

In Monster on Campus the professor is able to buy a ceolcanth that's been irratiated.  I'm pretty sure you'd have to pull a few strings to get something like that.

[the ghoul]

I don't know because I don't mock it.  I eat that s**t right up.  The lab coats, the lack of safety glasses, the cheesy bubbling beakers and lab equipment.  I love it in spite of, and also because of, the crazy illogic of it all.  I prefer to mock Dumbledore's beard, Nicholas Cage's "acting," CGI, chick flicks, and the dark knight's voice.