As the two films of the year most universally praised for their feminism — and accused of being feminist propaganda by MRAs — it is inevitable that we will begin comparing Mad Max: Fury Road and Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Both are revived franchises featuring a female lead for the first time. Both are clearly trying to do something fresh and progressive, despite the constraints of mainstream Hollywood and the expectations of some less-than-feminist fans. One film has an overtly feminist plot undercut by a directorial style that undermines all its political points, while the other is a universal mythic adventure that delivers its feminism more subtly , by way of a demonstration of equality. Both are films worthy of love and analysis but, in my opinion, it’s The Force Awakens that gives us feminist inclined folks hope for the future of film and has the potential to really impact the way growing girls perceive themselves in a positive way.

Fury Road is trying to do something ambitious — to tell a truly feminist story, a treatise on objectification, violence and the dangers of hypermasculinity, but while the intention is to condemn these things, the film’s style and genre glorifies them. Immortan Joe’s wives do not change out of their skimpy clothing, looking like something from the Victoria’s Secret catalogue for almost the entire film. Their characters are not developed and they are entirely flat. Even Furiosa, a character who many have held up as a feminist icon, is the same old Strong Female Character we’re used to seeing — badass, masculinized and not really much more fleshed out as a character than the wives. The objectification of the wives gets ridiculous when they stop to drink water and the leary camera traces Angharad’s wet pregnant belly as they hose themselves down. It’s very hard to take anything this film has to say about the evils of objectification seriously after such blatant evidence of the male gaze. The film also aims to critique war, violence and murder, yet it revels in over the top action scene after over the top action scene. It is, of course, very difficult to make a critique of violence in an action movie — a genre that celebrates the catharsis in mayhem, explosions, violence and death — and Fury Road does not succeed. It is a very feminist idea executed in a way that greatly undermines its message. George Miller should be commended for attempting to address these ideas but, in my opinion, he has not created the feminist masterpiece he intended to.

The Force Awakens on the other hand, is a mythic fantasy that manages to artfully sidestep and subvert every anti-woman pitfall most Hollywood movies have. Rey’s appearance and gender are non-issues. She is never threatened with sexual violence. She does not need to be rescued. She has agency. She has her own story and is not just window dressing. She is not a weak damsel but neither is she a Strong Female Character (yawn) — all stoic and emotionless and badass. She is allowed to emote without being portrayed as weak. The Force Awakens is feminist in that it features a capable, confident and complex woman as its protagonist — a woman viewers can relate to and aspire to be like. A positive, non-sexualized role model for young women, which is a very rare commodity in Hollywood.

As an ‘80s kid, Star Wars: A New Hope was the first movie I ever saw. From the age of three I was obsessed with Princess Leia, this sassy young woman in a flowing white dress with weird hair and a blaster. I continued to admire and look up to Leia throughout my childhood, as one of the few female characters in sci-fi/fantasy that wasn’t a helpless victim. As I got older though, I began to notice that Leia is an anomaly — women in the Star Wars universe are not important or powerful. Not only this, but as cool as Leia may be, her role in the events of the movie is minimal. Her attempt to rescue her lover Han Solo, a subversion of the damsel in distress trope, is immediately undermined by her spending half the movie in a gold bikini and the rest playing mommy to a bunch of teddy bears. Sure, she has her moments, but she’s far from a hero. Even when Lucas attempted, in the abysmal prequels, to fool us into seeing Padme Amidala as an empowered female character, he failed miserably. Telling us she’s a Queen or a Senator and then spending three movies reducing her from clothes horse to romantic interest to hysterical pregnant wife who tragically dies to motivate the protagonist (ugh — also, WTF is this inconsistent world where you can produce clones but you can’t safely birth twins?) is not the same as creating an actual rounded female character, George. So it stands to reason that it would take a new writer/director to give us girls someone to truly relate to.

As I sat watching The Force Awakens this holiday season, I was struck by how momentous this was — finally, a mainstream, iconic, insanely popular movie series like Star Wars — arguably the most iconic and popular movie series — is telling the world that women are people. We’re human. We matter. I was moved to tears by several of the most effortlessly feminist moments of the film. Not just because, as a female Star Wars fan, to be able to finally say, “That could be me, I identify with her,” was so new and exhilarating (the only thing that came close for me was Katniss Everdeen but The Hunger Games’ cultural significance is much less than Star Wars’, which is part of our cultural tapestry) but also, amazingly, I felt a cultural shift happening and an immense gratitude for how formative this film will be for a generation of little girls. When Rey wields that lightsabre, for this nerd girl, that was one of the most validating moments of my pop culture life. We can be heroes too. I really can’t emphasise enough how huge that is.

The point of this piece is not that say that Fury Road is shit and The Force Awakens is awesome — that’s immensely reductive. Fury Road is a very competently made action movie that revives the gritty tactility of ’80s action films (yet another thing it has in common with The Force Awakens) but it just strikes me as odd when I hear that Mad Max: Fury Road is regarded as the most feminist film of 2015, a year that concluded with the greatest feminist revelation of my movie-going life. Perhaps a girl has to have spent her early childhood playing Star Wars in the art cupboard, having recurring dreams of being held prisoner in a little cell where a floating robotic ball threatens to inject her with who-knows-what, drawing hundreds of stick figures with big round scribbles on each side of their head and insisting on being addressed as “Princess Leia” by pre-school staff to really appreciate what Star Wars: The Force Awakens means to us nerdy girls. This movie will awaken something game-changing in the girls and women who watch it, something pop culture sadly likes to tell us we have no access to. It will awaken our power. And if that’s not feminist as fuck, I don’t know what is.