‘We know an Avenger’: pair in Brie Larson Disney+ docuseries Growing Up on working with the Captain Marvel star to tell their story of fighting menstruation stigma in a US high US school

Disney+ docuseries Growing Up has an episode about best friends who sought to promote menstrual equity and acceptance at their US high school

Isabel Lam and Clare Della Valle are pinching themselves about working with Brie Larsen, and miffed they couldn’t extract any Marvel Cinematic Universe secrets

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(From left) Isabel Lam, Brie Larson and Clare Della Valle at the premiere of Disney+ original docuseries Growing Up, which highlights the stories of 10 young adults. Photo: Getty Images

Published: 4:15am, 7 Oct 2022

When an Avenger taps you for an important mission, you do not question it. You just assemble.

That is what Isabel Lam, 20, and Clare Della Valle, 21, did when they were contacted by the producers of Growing Up, a Disney+ docuseries created by Captain Marvel star Brie Larson that highlights the stories of 10 young adults.

Lam and Della Valle had earned national attention for helping to organise a Period Day rally in the US city of Philadelphia, and Disney+ wanted to feature the childhood best friends in the show’s first season.

Growing Up has an entire episode dedicated to Lam, now a University of Pittsburgh third-year student, and Della Valle talking about their formative years in Lackawanna County in Pennsylvania and how they started a chapter of “Period: The Menstrual Movement” at their high school to promote menstrual equity – making menstrual products either free or more affordable – and acceptance.

Della Valle, left, and Lam in Growing Up. Photo: TNS

“We’re from a small town in northeast Pennsylvania,” says Della Valle, now a third-year student at Cornell University in New York. “The thought that you can click on my face on Disney+ is insane.”