6. Promoting Anarchy - Monkey Business
While the banning of Battleship Potemkin on political grounds might have been a completely over-the-top reaction to an incredible work of cinema, at least the subject matter of the film was related to the justification. The same can't be said for Monkey Business, the classic Marx Brothers comedy. With its broad humour and slapstick sight gags, it's certainly fair to say that Monkey Business is an anarchic comedy of exaggerations, but the Irish Film Censors Office took things way too far when they banned the film outright, accusing it of encouraging anarchic tendencies. It wasn't until 2000 that the authorities reversed their absurd decision and allowed the film a release. Many other movies previously banned in Ireland were done so on religious grounds, perhaps most surprising of all being Disney's Fantasia, which offended the moral guardians because it "gave an entirely materialistic view of the origin of life".