Mariachi was heavily involved in cultural promotion as a way to create a unified Mexican identity after the end of the Mexican Revolution. One of these efforts was the promotion of mariachi as an international symbol of Mexican identity, first with radio and sound recordings and later with films. Mexico built a nationwide radio broadcasting network in the 1920s such as XEB and XEW, which began broadcasting mariachi music as a media production, rather than as a music for social events. This music was already being modified in part due to the advent of sound recording. For example, most son jaliscense
El Mariachi when the Mariachi jumps on a bus, where Rodriguez is visible; the Mariachi bumping his weapon into a street pole; him failing to throw his guitar case on a balcony and Dominó twitching her face when she is already dead. Rodriguez spared expense by shooting on 16 mm film as opposed to 35 mm, and transferring the film to video for editing, avoiding the costs of cutting on film. In the end, he used only 24 rolls of film and only spent $7,225 of the $9,000 he had planned. Rodriguez also gave insight into his low budget approach to simulate